Air Force Office of Special Investigations personnel are assisting Italian authorities in Pordenone, Italy, following the death of a 12-year-old daughter of an Aviano Air Base airman, officials said. She was found dead at her home following a recent hospital visit due to a sports-related injury. (Brian Erickson/Stars and Stripes)
NAPLES, Italy — Air Force investigators are assisting Italian authorities as they work to determine how the daughter of an Aviano Air Base airman died this week.
The prosecutor’s office for the city of Pordenone is the lead agency investigating the 12-year-old’s death, said Linda Card, a spokeswoman for the service’s Office of Special Investigations.
OSI is “gathering details and information for that agency as requested by that agency,” Card said Thursday in an email.
She added that requests for information about the case only could be made to the Italian prosecutor.
Stars and Stripes’ phone calls and emails to the prosecutor’s office went unanswered Wednesday and Thursday.
An official for the agency told local Italian media that the girl’s parents found her dead in her bed at the family’s northern Italy home Tuesday. The family lives in Prata di Pordenone, a town about 15 miles from the base.
The investigation was in the early stages, and no cause or contributing factors to the girl’s death had yet been determined, Maria Grazia Zaina, acting public prosecutor for the city of Pordenone, told the Italian news agency Ansa on Wednesday.
Zaina said she ordered a local coroner to examine the girl’s body to determine if an autopsy was needed. The autopsy appeared likely, she said.
On Sunday, the girl was taken to a local hospital complaining of leg pain due to a sports-related injury two days earlier. She was released and then discovered dead two days later, according to the Ansa report.
Principals for Aviano’s middle-high and elementary schools informed parents of the death in emails Tuesday evening. School officials discussed it with students Wednesday morning, a spokeswoman for the 31st Fighter Wing said the same day.
The schools’ crisis management team would be available to provide support to students, staff and parents for as long as needed, DODEA spokeswoman Jessica Tackaberry said Wednesday.
