27-05-2025
Girl falls to death from 3rd floor at sleepover, MA parents say. ‘My only baby'
The parents of a 12-year-old girl are mourning their daughter, who they say died after falling from a third-floor apartment window during a sleepover with her friends in Massachusetts.
Arya Lebeau's injuries led to her death the next morning, May 24, the Worcester County District Attorney's Office told WCVB-TV.
Now, authorities are investigating her fall from the apartment building in Southbridge, about a 60-mile drive southwest from Boston, the night of May 23, according to a news release shared with McClatchy News by Southbridge Police Chief Shane D. Woodson.
'I cannot express the amount of grief I feel at the loss of my only baby,' Arya's mother, Charlene Cabrera, wrote in a GoFundMde organized on her behalf by a friend and neighbor.
Police alerted Cabrera of Arya's fall, telling her no adults had been in the apartment, two hours after she took her daughter to the sleepover, Cabrera told WCVB-TV.
Cabrera said to WFXT that she heard there was a potential dispute involving Arya and her friends.
'Next thing, my daughter fell through the window,' Cabrera said in an interview with the TV station. 'There really isn't much more to say about it, you know what I mean. It's just very tragic and should have never happened.'
Arya was taken to UMass Memorial Medical Center - University Campus in Worcester, where she was declared dead, the Southbridge Police Department said.
Authorities have described what happened to her as an 'unattended death,' reported.
Jeremy Lebeau, Arya's father, told WCVB-TV that this wasn't the first time his daughter stayed at the Southbridge apartment, where he said her friend lives.
'Part of her summer list was to have sleepovers, which is what she was doing,' Lebeau said, according to the TV station. 'She was the greatest child I could have in my life. I miss her. I just want closure — no matter what, I just want closure, I want answers.'
In a May 24 Facebook post, user Dimas Cabrera wrote that they are Arya's grandparent and said Arya might have been thrown from a window and landed on her head.
McClatchy News translated the post, which was written in Spanish, using Google Translate.
The Massachusetts Office of the Chief Medical Examiner will perform an autopsy to determine how she died, according to police.
In her GoFundMe post, Charlene Cabrera expressed gratitude over the support she's received since Arya's death.
'I have no words, but would like to thank every single person, parent and child for reaching out and for your loving support,' Charlene Cabrera wrote. 'It is truly beautiful seeing a whole community coming together to support her.'
