The grandfather of the baby who in July died after falling from a window of a cruise shipdocked in Puerto Rico, on Monday, October 28, was charged with negligent homicide.
According to prosecutors of San Juan, Salvatore Anello brought his 18-month-old granddaughter, Chloe Wigand, to the open window on the liner Freedom of the Seas of Royal Caribbean on July 17 of this year. The girl slipped from his hands and from the 11th floor of the ship fell to the concrete pier dock in San Juan. The baby died on the spot.
Courtesy of lawyer Michael Winkleman
The family’s lawyer, Wigand from Indiana said that Chloe asked your grandfather to raise her, so she could knock on the window. The window was open.
«Chloe wanted to Bang on the glass, as she always did at the hockey games of his older brothers, the lawyer said Michael Winkleman after the tragedy. Her grandfather thought that there glass, but the window was open, and it literally disappeared in an instant».
The dead girl’s parents, Alan and Kimberly Wigand, said do not blame Anello in the tragedy and make a complaint to the cruise company whose employees carelessly left the window open.
«We certainly accuse them — said the girl’s mother, Kimberly Wigand, a former Deputy district attorney in the state of Indiana. We have a lot of questions. Why in the children’s room on the 11th floor was the window open?».
She added that grandpa never put the grandkids in danger, and still can’t recover after the tragedy.
«It is impossible to watch without tears, said Kimberly. Chloe was his best friend.»
According to the company Royal Caribbean, the window was open for ventilation in the children’s playroom.
The detainee Salvatore Anello was out on bail in $80 thousand and have to appear in court on November 20.
