CA - 8-year-old boy dies after being found submerged head first in washing machine

[ScarlettScarpetta]

http://www.signalscv.com/section/36/article/102304/

“We raised the lid and the agitator was still working,” he said. “It’s quite possible he got sucked in by the agitator.”

 

[NZkirsty]

How horrible

 

[Hejlena]

http://www.signalscv.com/section/36/article/102304/

“We raised the lid and the agitator was still working,” he said. “It’s quite possible he got sucked in by the agitator.”

Article says it's a homicide investigation now, but also says sheriff stated there's no indication that it was anything but a tragic accident.

Am I reading into "homicide investigation"? I don't understand both statements in the same breath.

 

[MsFacetious]

I can not site the source but will be happy to provide it to Admin..

This child had some special issues. Doing laundry was something his therapist was working on with him.

The think that he may have dropped something and tried to retrieve it. He is not a strong boy.

Exactly what Scarlett said. This was a tragic accident.

 

[Public_Hysteria]

All washing machines are different - you can lift the lid on mine and it will keep going, the only time it doesn't when it is on the spin cycle and the lid locks itself. I too believe that this is a tragic accident, the poor little darling.

 

[Nova]

Article says it's a homicide investigation now, but also says sheriff stated there's no indication that it was anything but a tragic accident.

Am I reading into "homicide investigation"? I don't understand both statements in the same breath.

I'm not a lawyer, but in many jurisdictions a distinction is made between "homicide" (the killing of a human) and "murder" (the deliberate or negligent killing of a human) or "manslaughter" (defined in various ways).

A case may remain classified as a homicide while the coroner and/or police investigate the exact manner of death.

In other words, all murders are homicides, but not all homicides are murders or even crimes.

 

[AlwaysShocked]

I think many top loading washing machines will agitate with the lid open. Mine is a Kenmore, about 8 years old. It will fill and agitate with the lid open. It is only in the spin cycle that the lid-lock works, and even that can be either bypassed or broken.

 

[wendybtn]

Okay, let's say the washer's on, and filling up. The boy is inside by himself. He decides to do something he's practiced before - a handstand. He trots up to the washer, braces his two hands against its top front, and swings himself upward. But he can't, when he arrives above it, plant his hands; there's condensation on the machine perhaps. He slides forward, and falls in.

OMG! I hope not. But with three boys of my own I can completely see that happening. Just one little slip and a bad angle; too awful to contemplate.

 

[wendybtn]

I can not site the source but will be happy to provide it to Admin..

This child had some special issues. Doing laundry was something his therapist was working on with him.

The think that he may have dropped something and tried to retrieve it. He is not a strong boy.

I wondered about that. My now 18 year old son who has Aspergers went through a spell with obsessively doing laundry when he was 5 or 6. I can so easily see some freak accident happening.

 

[mistivon]

Investigators with the county coroner’s office have closed their case on 8-year-old Cole Hartman — the Santa Clarita Valley youngster found face-down and submerged in a water-filled washing machine last summer — without declaring the autistic boy’s death an accident, suicide or homicide.


http://santaclarita.crwe-pr.com/blo...case-of-castaic-boy-found-in-washing-machine/