Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies

Clue to pool death won't yield cause

The parents are frustrated that authorities cannot say conclusively why child died.

TAMPA - A vital piece of an unfinished puzzle surrounding a little girl's death will never be known.

The Hillsborough County Medical Examiner learned Wednesday that a tissue sample from 8-year-old Kiana Appleby, who was found in Westchase's community pool in May, was too degraded to be tested to see if Kiana had a heart defect. The tissue was sent to Boston University for testing on June 15.

The medical examiner was waiting for the test results to name a cause of death, which the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office needs to close the case. And Westchase's Community Association wants official police word before reconsidering how it manages the pool.

Kiana's father, Keith Appleby, just wants answers.

"I guess I really don't know how to feel," he said Wednesday. "I don't know what that changes. I guess I just would like to know what happened to my daughter."

Kiana's Dolphins swim team was evacuated from Westchase's community pool on May 5 when a storm began. About 30 other children gathered under a shelter, and one of the children noticed Kiana was missing. A staff member did a head count, checked the restrooms, and walked around the pool, according to the sheriff's office. Kiana was spotted at the bottom of the pool.

Westchase officials have been quiet about the issue.

"I appreciate the information, and we'll continue to monitor it," Westchase Community Association president Jim Mills said of Wednesday's news.

At an August budget meeting, Westchase's property manager decided to leave extra money in the community's legal fund after a resident asked about a potential lawsuit.

Keith Appleby declined to comment on the association's handling of the situation.

Boston University is one of only two places in the country that can test for Long Q-T Syndrome, a hereditary heart rhythm disorder.

Hillsborough's associate medical examiner Sam Gulino said scientists at the university have had similar problems extracting DNA from tissue of sufficient quality and quantity to do the test. The DNA can degrade between the time of death and when it is collected.

"A number of cases they've received from medical examiners have been the same," he said.

Dick Bailey, medical examiner operations manager, said collection procedures were followed.

"They said the specimen was degraded, but we sent the specimen out as it was supposed to be sent," said Bailey. "The question I have is why we didn't have some indication before that there was some problem."

Gulino said he was frustrated with the delay.

"From our standpoint, it's a little disappointing that it took them three months to tell us that," Gulino said.

Aubrey Milunsky, director of the Center for Human Genetics at Boston University, declined to comment.

Gulino said he will meet with Kiana's parents next week to review her complete medical history.

"I'm just going to sit down and review all the information we have from beginning to end," he said. Gulino will try to determine a cause of death from the information he has.

Sheriff's spokeswoman Debbie Carter said she'll release a statement when the medical examiner gives official word.