I believe God wept bitterly...
PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania (AP) -- A man angry his toddler
daughter wouldn't go to bed knocked her unconscious and left her to die
outside in single-digit temperatures, police said. The frozen
body of Nyia Miangel Page, who was about to turn 2, was found Sunday at
an abandoned playground about a 10-minute walk from the family's home. Tiny footprints in the snow suggest she had gotten up and wandered around before she died, police said. Her
father, William Lorenzo Page, 23, of Braddock, was arrested Wednesday
on charges of criminal homicide, kidnapping, false reports and simple
assault. He has been in custody since Sunday, when he was charged with sexually abusing another child shortly before Nyia died. Page, who did not have an attorney at his arraignment Thursday morning, was jailed without bond. Page
told police he woke up early Saturday and found the girl awake and
playing near a mirror in the hallway, according to a criminal complaint
filed Wednesday night. He said he got angry when the girl wouldn't go
back to bed and he hit her so hard she lost consciousness, the
complaint said. Police said Page told them he took the girl
outside wrapped in a blanket and left her, still breathing, beside
railroad tracks near a bridge. Police said a T-shirt, a pair of
women's underwear and a Pittsburgh Steelers "Terrible Towel," all found
in Page's basement, appeared to have bloodstains. An autopsy
determined Nyia died of hypothermia, but the Allegheny County medical
examiner ruled the death a homicide because investigators said it was
unreasonable to assume the child had made it alone to the playground,
which is on a wooded knoll. The toddler would need to have climbed 17 snowy steps to get there. Authorities
could only guess how long Nyia, wearing only a sweater and a diaper,
could have survived in temperatures that hovered around 2 degrees
Saturday morning. "Given her size, she would have been rendered
incapacitated very quickly," Allegheny County Medical Examiner Karl E.
Williams said Thursday. "She'd been out so long, when we found her she
was frozen." A witness saw Page enter his house Saturday morning from the direction where his daughter was found, police said. He
was back out on the street about an hour later, saying he was looking
for the girl and telling the witness, "Somebody took my daughter,"
according to a criminal complaint. Nyia's mother told police she
last saw the girl after Nyia tried to crawl into bed with her parents
about 12:30 a.m. Saturday. The mother told police she put the youngster
back into her own bed in an upstairs room. Police, emergency
crews and bloodhounds searched in 20-degree temperatures for most of
two days before finding the little girl's body. The sexual abuse charge against Page came as police investigated Nyia's disappearance. Police
said another child in the house told investigators that sometime
overnight Friday, Page entered a bedroom, covered the child's mouth
with one hand and touched the child's genitals with the other. The
child said Page then left the room, followed by Nyia, police said. Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. | 
