Inset: Olivia Smith (GoFundMe). Background: Ring camera footage shows Olivia Smith walking left past a line of trees before her death (WJRT/YouTube).
Authorities in Michigan are investigating the death of a 12-year-old girl who was found gravely injured in a trailer park after a 911 caller reported that she had “ran face first into a tree.” Bay County officials say online speculation has intensified in the days since, with questions and “rumors” circulating about whether the child “was being chased,” according to the county sheriff.
“It’s just been an odd one because it’s really morphed into another form on social media with people,” Bay County Sheriff Troy Cunningham told Law&Crime this week while discussing the death of Olivia Smith. He said investigators are still working to determine exactly what happened and are asking anyone with information to contact authorities.
Cunningham and other law enforcement officials told Law&Crime that Olivia was discovered near a friend’s home in Kawkawlin Township at about 9:20 p.m. on July 6. That was when the emergency call came in reporting “a 12-year-old female who ran face first into a tree.”
According to the dispatcher, people at the scene said Olivia was “unconscious.” When emergency medical crews arrived, they performed CPR before taking her to a nearby hospital. She later died there.
A Bay County Sheriff’s Office official told Law&Crime that investigators did not observe obvious external blunt-force injuries on the girl’s body. “There was no indication that she hit a tree if you looked at her,” the official said. “I was at the autopsy. Outwardly, you couldn’t tell if she hit the tree or didn’t hit the tree.”
Olivia’s family has said online, including in a GoFundMe, that she was born with a “heart defect,” though officials have not said whether that condition contributed to her death. Ring camera video shows Olivia stepping down from a staircase and walking toward trees shortly before she died.
“From the autopsy, there’s a question right now of whether there was a heart issue and if she didn’t stumble … and coincidentally hit a tree,” Cunningham said. “Because one girl said [Olivia] kind of stumbled before she fell down.”
The doctors and pathologists who have observed Olivia’s body and conducted the autopsy have told police that right now, it doesn’t appear that she ran into a tree the way the 911 call “originally came out,” per the sheriff’s office. So far, the autopsy has shown that striking the tree “wasn’t enough to have caused” Olivia’s death, according to police officials.
“Everything’s still under investigation,” Cunningham explained. “I mean, we’re seeing the same stuff … with social media blowing up … but what I can say so far, looking at it, our biggest thing right now is just waiting for the toxicology to come back. That’s kind of where we’re at.”
According to the sheriff, “rumors” have swirled on social media about whether Olivia was being chased by other children with whom she had “issues.” Police have been interviewing children who were in the trailer park the night Olivia died and looking at Ring camera footage that shows both Olivia and other children in the area where she was found, Cunningham said.
“There are rumors we’ve heard a little bit, and some of the people we’ve talked to have said that Olivia and another girl did have issues with each other and were talking about fighting or something like that,” Cunningham told Law&Crime, noting how there have been claims that “one girl wanted to fight Olivia” the night before her death “or earlier” in the day and was chasing her.
“From the people we’ve talked to and the videos we’ve seen, there’s no evidence at this point that she was actually being chased,” Cunningham said. “We’ve heard that on social media and stuff, but the people that we’ve interviewed who were out there on scene don’t have any evidence of anyone actually chasing her.”
Olivia’s mom, Rebecca Smith, has made several posts on Facebook mentioning “kids” she welcomed into her home, whom she is angry with. But she has not clarified the exact meaning of her posts. Smith has not responded to Law&Crime’s requests for comment.
“My daughter Olivia didn’t hit a tree,” Smith wrote on July 19. “Now I’m not saying that her body didn’t make contact with the damn tree. I know she was found at the base of the tree. I know she didn’t suffer any broken bones. I know she had perfect vision. I know she could run, jump, swim, ride bikes. Olivia could do everything that every healthy child could do, even better than most at times because she was a perfectionist with certain things in her life. I know she DID NOT hit that tree with her face!! I truly hope that the investigators are seeking answers because Olivia didn’t deserve this! Her brothers didn’t deserve this. I certainly didn’t deserve this. I welcomed those kids into my home. I have their names on Olivia’s mirror. The audacity to ask about attending her funeral.”
On July 20, Smith wrote:
You took this away from me. Olivia should be here. Olivia should be out playing. Being goofy. Be loud. I shouldn’t have this guilt I have doing things I use to love. Sneaking a Rally Burger. Wal-mart shopping. Sunset cruising. Playing animal crossing on my switch and having Olivia on my island. All my hopes and dreams for Olivia. Gone. You’re a sick and twisted soul. I hope the feeling of never being as amazing as Olivia eats at you! You should all be ashamed and so should your parents.
A video that police confirmed has come up during Olivia’s death investigation shows several children running in the trailer park on the night Olivia died and allegedly talking about “chasing her.” The video also shows kids on bikes in masks, whom Cunningham said had nothing to do with what happened.
“We heard … the surveillance video where the girls are saying, ‘If anybody says anything, say we weren’t chasing her, we were just going to check on her,'” Cunningham told Law&Crime. “But the kids that were there and the people we’ve interviewed at this point, we have not had anybody tell us Olivia was being chased.”
Cunningham added, “We’re still going to gather all the information and then we’ll, we’ll go through it and the detectives will put it back together. And, you know, what can be proven, we hold on to, and what’s just rumor, we let go.”
Olivia’s autopsy results and toxicology report are expected to be released in the coming days or weeks, according to police. The Bay County Medical Examiner’s Office did not respond to Law&Crime’s repeated requests for comment.
“If there was a heart condition or some other medical episode that took place that caused this, I can see if somebody was watching, you know, if they saw her coming down the road — or something happened and she was laying by a tree or ran into a tree or stumbled into a tree — what it looks like,” Cunningham said. “But we got to go with what the autopsy and the doctors are saying. So that’s why it’s really hard. I understand, it’s terrible for a family to have to sit here and wait. That’s the worst part of these.”
The post ‘Ran face first into a tree’: 12-year-old’s ‘odd’ death probed by police as ‘rumors’ swirl on social media about whether she was being chased, sheriff says first appeared on Law & Crime.
