Father accused of trying to drown 2-year-old daughter at Running Springs campgrounds over the weekend, police say
Dover, Del.– A Dover man, who police say is being accused of trying to drown his 2-year-old daughter at a campground on the Delaware River, has been arrested and charged with aggravated assault, police said.
Police said they were called Sunday night and found the man, identified as 41-year-old Edward Thomas, Jr., unresponsive in his vehicle parked near the park’s entrance. He was pronounced dead at the scene. It wasn’t immediately known how the girl died.
The incident is being investigated as a possible homicide, and police said they are still waiting on an autopsy report.
A witness at the campground told police that the man tried to push her daughter in the lake as other people were entering the park. She attempted to calm the man down, but he became angry and pushed her in the water, police said. The witness also said the man pushed her in the lake.
Police said the man had a red handkerchief in his hand when he entered his vehicle. She is described as 5’4″, 145 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes.
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Police said there wasn’t much in the way of identification on the man, who had been living in the area.
“He had a lot of medical issues going back to when he was a kid,” said Dover Police Captain David Hagerty. “He had a traumatic family history. He had a brother that died… And he had a sister who died as well. There was a lot of issues that went back.”
Hagerty said police learned the man had had an accident around four o’clock Sunday. He said the girl had been in with him as he was driving, but he got pulled over on a traffic violation. He said officers were called within minutes to the scene and arrived around 5:45 p.m.
“We were able to get him out of the car,” Hagerty said. The man was transported to a local hospital, but at the hospital he gave a different story about his daughter. Hagerty said she was very well and had been living with family in Kansas since she was born, although she was still in the hospital at the time he was hospitalized.
Officers were able