The mother of a Surrey toddler whose death is now under investigation by police says what happened was “100 per cent accidental.”
Jennifer Johanson and Cody Graham, stepfather of three-year-old Charlee, said they are devastated by their little girl’s death.
“She was my fearless little baby. She always wanted to do what all the big kids would do,” a tearful Jennifer Johanson told reporters Sunday.
Police aren’t releasing much information regarding the circumstances of the child’s death, but IHIT spokeswoman Sgt. Stephanie Ashton said the child was taken to hospital on Wednesday. The little girl succumbed to her injuries in hospital Saturday.
Graham said the toddler had a bad fall on Tuesday while she was using a plastic bin to wash her hands in the bathroom at the couple’s home.
“It’s on the linoleum floor and she jumped off of it and slipped and bashed her head off the ground,” Graham said. “It sounded very similar to a head hitting the ice.”
Despite that, Graham said Charlee didn’t display any signs of a concussion.
“She was just a happy normal Charlee. It didn’t seem like anything was wrong, other than I know she had bonked her head on the ground.”
Graham said the next morning, he took Charlee for a walk to the park when he noticed she was stumbling and having trouble climbing on the playground, calling it unusual behaviour for the three-year-old.
“We got back home at maybe 6:15 and she was in bed by 6:30,” he said.
But Graham said just before 7 p.m., Charlee suddenly experienced a “horrible” seizure and had to be rushed to hospital. “That was the last we had basically seen her alive, was before she had the seizure,” he said.
He said both he and Johanson stayed by Charlee's side at BC Children’s Hospital. After she died the couple returned home Saturday to find police vehicles.
“We come home and everything that is Charlee's is gone. The tent is gone. All I wanted to do was to lay in that tent and just remember her,” Johanson said. “I wish I could’ve just traded places with her.”
Johanson and Graham say it’s hard knowing Charlee's death is being probed as a suspicious death, claiming they’ve done nothing wrong.
“Neither of us would ever, ever, ever touch Charlee. I would be more likely to hurt somebody who did touch Charlee then to ever touch Charlee myself,” Graham said.
No charges have been laid in the death. Ashton said a coroner will perform an autopsy to try to find out why Charlee died.
“The hardest part for the public and for us is that it can take days for us to find out what that really means,” she said. “Sometimes, something that’s suspicious turns out not to be, and sometimes it turns out that it is.”
Police are asking anyone who might have information in the case to contact the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team.
With a report from CTV Vancouver’s Maria Weisgarber
