Their Daughter's Body Lost, Murder Unsuspected by City, Parents Sue

By Roy Edroso Wed., Nov. 18 2009 at 9:02 AM

Categories: Crime, Featured, Legal

Tiana Rice of The Bronx was 16 when she called her parents from her cell phone in a panic, screamed, and was disconnected on December 31. For a month they held onto every dispatch in her case, and searched frantically for her. Meanwhile the police had found her nude body in a crackhouse on Ridgewood Avenue. As there were no signs of trauma and no ID, authorities filed her as a Jane Doe; an apparently hasty examination showed she'd died of an asthma attack and that she appeared to be between 25 and 35 years old, and her body mouldered while her parents sweated...

In February someone in the medical examiner's office had a second thought, rechecked the corpse, and determined it was Rice. Sorry, they told the family, your daughter died nude in a crack house.

The family was not satisfied with the explanation, and suspicious of the situation in which Rice, not a hard case or a party girl, was found. They started pushing their story in such press as was interested. Finally police took another look and found Rice had been raped and murdered, succumbing to the asthma attack while being assaulted.

Tiana Rice's parents are now suing the city for its incompetent treatment of their dead child. We hope they get millions.

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