Police say the 6-year-old girl who drowned in the Erie Canal in Greece Thursday evening slipped and fell as she retrieved her sandals from a nearby dock.
Greece Police Chief Patrick Phelan on Friday said it appeared that Alliyah Williams of Rochester fell into the canal in Henpeck Park while collecting the sandals she had left along the waterway earlier in the evening.
Phelan said the girl's death appeared to be an accidental drowning.
Alliyah, her 11-year-old sister and two other family members had taken a canoe into the water on Thursday and spent several hours at the park before the drowning occurred.
Alliyah and one of the adults briefly left the park to visit a store and, after returning, the girl walked to the canal shore to pick up her sandals, but apparently fell in.
The woman who was watching Alliyah at the time briefly lost sight of the girl, then could not find her. Phelan said no one witnessed the girl entering the water.
Phelan also said the other relative, a man, was still in the canoe nearby when he heard cries for help from the woman and jumped into the water. Phelan said it appeared that the canoe sank in the canal's murky waters, but the vessel has not yet been located.
Several others in the area also helped search the canal for the girl immediately after she reportedly fell in.
Greece police were called to the park around 7 p.m. after receiving the report of a missing child and rushed to the scene. At first there were a lot of possibilities and hope that the massive amount of first responders would locate her safely, Phelan said.
Alliyah's body was recovered from the waterway about 2½ hours later, about 8 to 10 feet east of where authorities believe she fell into the water.
According to police, the Monroe County Medical Examiner's Office's preliminary results stated that the girl drowned, and did not suffer any blunt force trauma to her head as a result of the fall. The ME's Office had not officially identified the child's body.
"The death of a 6-year-old child is taken very seriously," Phelan said. "We'll gather all the facts and make decisions" following the investigation.
Henpeck Park is a four-acre town park in Greece on Ridgeway Avenue near Elmgrove Road. It borders the north side of the Erie Canal. There's one concrete dock in the park, with a metal ladder, and concrete walls bordering the canal. Visitors can also see a grassy slope from the parking area to the waterway.
"The canal in general can be very dangerous," Phelan said. "It's very murky, very dark...You really can't see if you go under the water and there's a lot of debris underneath the water."
The Monroe County Sheriff's Office and Rochester Police scuba teams encountered a lot of debris under the water, Phelan said. "In general, the canal is a dangerous place to enter the water as a swimmer."
Canal walls in this area extend several feet above the water line, making it difficult to exit the waterway once in the water, he said.
The recovery of Alliyah was a difficult and heart-breaking job, Phelan said. He assured that there are process in place to help first responders deal with the tragedy.
On Friday morning, several people stopped by the park to honor the girl. Among them was Cheyanna Decook, 20, of Gates, who spread pink rose petals in the water in memory of the young girl.
"It's so hard," she said. "I saw the police here last night and knew what it was about. My whole family is torn up about it. Something like this shouldn't happen."
Decook said she did not know the girl or family, but wanted to pay her respects.
Includes reporting by Ryan Miller and Keegan Kelly
