Family of girl killed in cruise ship fall to return home

FILE - This May 11, 2006 file photo shows the Freedom of the Seas cruise ship docked in Bayonne, N.J. Police in Puerto Rico say that on Sunday, July 7, 2019, a toddler apparently slipped from her grandfather's hands and fell to her death on this cruise ship, Freedom of the Seas, while docked in Puerto Rico. (AP Photo/Mike Derer, File)

INDIANAPOLIS — An attorney for an Indiana couple whose 18-month-old daughter fell to her death from the 11th story of a cruise ship in Puerto Rico says they hope to return home on a flight also carrying their youngest child’s body.

Miami-based attorney Michael Winkleman says Chloe Wiegand’s parents, two siblings and grandparents planned to fly home Thursday from San Juan. He says their only goal is “to get home as soon as possible so that they can grieve as a family.”

Winkleman says the family is working to ensure Chloe’s body is on the flight.

He’s challenged Puerto Rico police’s statement that Chloe apparently slipped from her grandfather’s hands Sunday as he held her out of a ship window.

Winkleman says she plunged from a window left open in a children’s play area.

Rick Callahan, The Associated Press