JONA LILAVOIS - 2 yo - Lauderdale Lakes FL

Missing girl found in canal dies

Feb 10 2012 06:12:16 PM EST



LAUDERDALE LAKES, Fla. -
The Broward Sheriff's Office says a 2-year-old girl found in a canal after wandering out of her home has died.
According to police, Jona Lilavois, 2, went out the front door of her home while
her mother was doing laundry and her father was in the bathroom.
Investigators were searching for the child in the area of 3500 NW 23rd Court.

Jona walked at least a quarter of a mile away from her home.
Police said the child was found unresponsive in a canal near U.S. 441 and Oakland Park Boulevard.
Rescuers flew the child to Broward General Medical Center. BSO said she died Friday evening.
http://www.local10.com/news/Missing-girl-2-found-in-canal/-/1717324/8628428/-/m0c0oaz/-/index.html

That's like four football fields away from home.
2 seems a little young for a trek. alone.
I suppose she could have gone that far, but with what we have been exposed to recently...who knows?

A missing two-year-old girl, who was the subject of a two-hour search
in Lauderdale Lakes on Friday, was ultimately found in a canal,
according to the Broward Sheriff's Office.
Jona Lilavois was
airlifted to Broward General Medical Center, where she was pronounced
dead just after 5 p.m., Broward Sheriff Fire Rescue spokesman Mike
Jachles said.
The toddler had been watching television in her home
on the 3600 block of Northwest 23rd Court in Lauderdale Lakes around
2:30 p.m., he said.
Both parents were home at the time. The child's mother was picking
lemons off a tree in the backyard and her father was using the bathroom.
When both returned, the little girl was no longer in front of the TV.
The front door did not appear to be locked, Jachles said.
"So they began looking and searching the house for the child," he said. "At 3:11 we got a 911 call that the child was missing."
That launched an immediate and extensive search by deputies, fire
rescue crews, a trained bloodhound, divers and air rescue, Jachles said.
"The
bloodhound went down the block and across the street and led the
handler to a nearby canal," he said. "The dog then jumped into the canal
[and] the handler alerted the divers and the helicopter overhead."
The
divers located the child but she was "unresponsive with no pulse." Fire
rescue crews began resuscitation efforts. The helicopter landed in a
field next to the canal and airlifted the girl to the hospital.
"Unfortunately, despite all of these efforts the child died at 5:21," Jachles said.
The Broward Medical Examiner is expected to determine the official cause of death.
There
was no mention made of charges being considered. Historically,
prosecutors have considered the loss of a child painful enough for
parents and that criminal neglect charges are unnecessary, but that's
not always the case.
Broward consistently is among the leading
counties in the nation when it comes to child drownings, averaging about
15 per year. Three times that many children are harmed in near
drownings, according to the Broward County Drowning Prevention task force.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/fl-lauderdale-lakes-girl-found-20120210,0,5552247.story

That story seems a little far fetched to me. How long would it take a baby to walk that far?

How could a baby disappear in the time it takes to go to the bathroom?

Why did they take 41 minutes to call 911?

I may be jaded but I'm not buying their story.

It's terribly sad. I wish her mother had taken her toddler with her to pick lemons rather than leave her in front of the TV. She would have enjoyed it and it's more educational and a hell of a lot safer to keep your kids with you and involve them in what you're doing. I remember when my son was that age, when I went to pick fruit or veges out of the garden or hang out the washing, I would clip a peg to a leaf on a tree and give him some pegs and he would happily carry on decorating the tree with them!

Kids love to pick fruit. Being outside would have been healthy and fun. She could have picked up lemons from the ground.

If that is actually what the mother was doing. Is she covering for her husband? Who leaves a 2 year old alone watching TV?

I guess the parents we read about here do.

Can they let bloodhounds follow the father's and mother's scents to see if they lead to the canal?

This just doesn't pass muster. To me anyway.