Three months after 18-month-old Chloe Wiegand fell to her death from a Royal Caribbean cruise ship in Puerto Rico, authorities have arrested the child's maternal grandfather, Salvatore Anello. Anello was holding his granddaughter shortly before she plunged to her death out an open window of the ship, landing on a concrete platform 150 feet below. Now, authorities are charging him with negligent manslaughter, despite the Wiegand family's insistence that he is not to blame for the terrible accident.
The tragic incident, which shocked cruisegoers and quickly made headlines around the world, happened on July 7, as the ship was docked in San Juan.
At first, the details that came through were murky — Anello was thought to have dropped the toddler as he was "dangling" her out a window on the ship, Freedom of the Seas. As more details emerged, police in Puerto Rico clarified that the family was actually in a children's play area on the 11th floor of the massive cruise liner, and that Anello was not dangling the toddler but had placed her on a ledge.
Two weeks later, Chloe's grief-stricken parents sat down with the 'Today Show' to explain what they believe happened.
According to the Wiegands, Anello had lifted the toddler up and placed her on a railing that rested behind a wall of glass panels, so she could see outside as the the cruise came to dock. Chloe's parents say this was something the little girl and her grandfather did often, as they would go to her older brothers' hockey games and she'd bang on the glass partition while cheering on her brothers.
However, Anello made one fatal miscalculation in those last few seconds: One of the glass panels had been removed, creating no barrier between the inside of the ship and the open air. When the toddler went to bang on the glass she thought was there, her parents say she fell forward and onto the platform below.
As the little girl fell, witnesses later said her mother let out a "primal" scream.
"I didn't know that she went out a window,'' Kimberly Wiegand told Savannah Guthrie of the Today Show several weeks after the accident. "And I just kept saying, 'Take me to my baby. Where's my baby?' I didn't even notice a window. I ran over there, and I looked over, and it wasn't water down there. It was concrete. To lose our baby this way is just unfathomable."
In an instant, her world was shattered.
"This one mother just came and held me and embraced me and I'll never forget it," Wiegand shared. "She just said, 'God, watch over this family.' I just want to thank her. I don't know where she is or who she is."
As horrifying as Chloe's death has been, both Kimberly and Alan Wiegand maintain that if anyone is to blame, it's the cruise line.
"We obviously blame them for not having a safer situation on the 11th floor of that cruise ship," Kimberly told Guthrie. "There are a million things that could've been done to make that safer. I know my mom was asking people, 'Why on earth is there a window open on the 11th floor without a screen or anything?'"
To that question, Royal Caribbean responded quickly, saying that it was done in an effort to provide ventilation to the upper decks. But the Wiegands feel there were other — safer — ways to do that.
"Well, to that I would say, 'Get a fan,'" Kimberly responded. "'Come up with some other mechanism to make your guests comfortable, rather than creating a tremendous safety hazard that cost our child her life.'"
The family has since begun legal proceedings to sue the cruise line.
Kimberly Wiegand also shared Anello's heartbreak over the loss of Chloe, saying that he was "extremely hysterical" in the moments after it happened.
"The thing that he has repeatedly told us is, 'I believed that there was glass,'" Kimberly shared. "He will cry over and over and over. … She was his best friend."
Anello was arrested Monday and is being held on a bond of $80,000, according to the Associated Press. His next scheduled court appearance is November 20, but if convicted, he could face a 15-year sentence.
Though the Wiegand family has not yet made any statements following the arrest, a representative for the cruise line issued the following statement on Monday, NBC News reported: "This was a tragic incident, and out of respect for the family’s privacy, we refer you to authorities for further comment."
