Teen Girl's Death at ER Remains a Mystery

By the time Chloe Ricard arrived at a Lawrence, Mass., emergency room, medical staff said there was nothing they could do. The 13-year-old from Amesbury was pronounced dead "shortly after arrival" at Lawrence General Hospital at 4:47pm Monday, according to the Essex District Attorney's Office. But what led to the death, and who dropped her off, is still unclear. Her family says Chloe had been with friends, and one called saying she was at the hospital. But "she didn't even have a pulse when they pushed her out of the car," stepfather Brian Dolan tells Boston 25. "They threw her out of the car like a bag of trash." He describes the unidentified driver as a man in his 40s. More:

• Chloe's mother, Deborah Goldsmith-Dolan, says her daughter asked to stay over at a friend's house Sunday via text from a friend's phone, because she didn't have her own. Goldsmith-Dolan said no, but she didn't get a response. As she filed a missing-persons report Monday, she says "one girl told me she is safe and someone dropped her off."
• Foul play is a possibility, a rep for the DA's office tells ABC News. She says "the people who brought her made her identity known to the hospital." "Our hearts go out to this family, and we are cooperating fully with the police investigation," Lawrence General said in a statement, per WCVB.

• An autopsy was conducted Tuesday, though "it will take some time before there is a ruling on the cause and manner of death," the DA's rep tells CBS Boston. "It was awful," Goldsmith-Dolan tells Boston 25. "They asked me how to identify her. My husband had to identify her by the scars."
• Chloe, whose father died five years ago, had previously run away and spent time at a home for troubled youth. Her caseworker noticed indications on Snapchat that she might run away again, per Boston 25, though Goldsmith-Dolan doesn't think that's what happened.
• At this point, no arrests have been made. "We have interviewed a number of people regarding the incident and we will continue to do so until we get all the answers," Lawrence Police Chief Roy Vasque tells the Eagle-Tribune.
• Chloe was an eighth-grade student at the private Solstice Day School in Rowley. The superintendent of Amesbury Middle School, which she previously attended, describes her as a talented artist who "found that she could sometimes best express herself through her artwork," per the Tribune.
• "[It's] like someone just yanked one of my best friends in the whole world out of my life way before it ever should have been taken," brother Kyle Ricard tells CBS Boston. "I hope it was worth it," he adds. "If something foul went on, you guys are going to go to jail for it."

(More mysterious death stories.)