GBI continues to investigate 4-year-old’s death in Lee County
Lee County officials confirm that autopsy performed on child in foster care
By Jon Gosa
LEESBURG — The Lee County Sheriff’s Office confirmed Thursday that an autopsy was being performed on a 4-year-old child who died early Wednesday while in the care of a foster home located at 141 Mayfield Drive.
Paramedics responded to a call about an injured child and arrived to find the child in critical condition, according to Lee County Chief Deputy Lewis Harris. The child later died at Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital.
“The GBI is continuing to investigate,” Harris said Thursday. “An autopsy is being performed today, and hopefully soon we will be able to know what caused the death of this child.”
According to Harris, a call on the child came in around 4 a.m. Wednesday.
“Lee County Public Safety 911 center received a call at 4:09 a.m. in reference to an injured child,” the LSO chief deputy said. “The paramedics arrived three minutes later at 4:12 a.m., made contact with the injured child and transported the child to Phoebe Putney main hospital emergency room. It is very unfortunate, but the child was pronounced deceased a short time later.”
The GBI was called in, Harris said. Most of Wednesday, GBI crime scene investigators processed the scene “thoroughly,” Harris said.
“The Lee County Sheriff’s Office called in the Georgia Bureau of Investigation crime scene unit to assist with the investigation,” Harris said. “The Lee County Sheriff’s Office doesn’t have the specialized equipment that the bureau has access to. They will thoroughly examine the evidence.”
According to Lee County Deputy Coroner Hill Mackey, the deceased child was taken to the GBI crime lab in Macon for an autopsy.
“We will hopefully know something early next week, perhaps Monday or Tuesday,” Mackey said.
The incident is being investigated “to the fullest extent possible,” according to the Lee chief deputy, but until the autopsy results came back, Harris said he would not officially call this a homicide investigation.
“I don’t like to use the word ‘homicide’ until we know for sure,” Harris said. “But, being that a child has died, we are going through everything with a fine-toothed comb to determine what happened. We will have to wait to see what the evidence tells us before we call it a homicide or we call it a natural death.”
Harris confirmed that at least three adults and four other children were present in the home when paramedics arrived.
“There was a foster mother, a grandmother, one other adult, three children and one special-needs child in the home when first responders arrived,” Harris said. “We are not yet ready to release the names at this time. Hopefully, we will know more soon.”
As of Thursday, the residence was still surrounded by crime scene tape, and a Lee County Sheriff’s deputy was posted outside.
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