Massachusetts Girl, 13, Dies Shortly After Being Mysteriously Dropped Off at Hospital

Massachusetts investigators are looking into the death of a 13-year-old girl who passed away shortly after she was dropped off at a Lawrence hospital.

Chloe Ricard died at the Lawrence General Hospital shortly after she was brought there around 4:45 p.m. Monday.

Investigators are trying to determine how the teen died. An autopsy was performed Tuesday but results are still pending.

“Under the circumstances it doesn’t appear to be a homicide, but we can’t say one way or another until we have a ruling,” Carrie Kimball, spokesperson for the Essex District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett’s office tells PEOPLE.

Chloe’s stepfather, Brian Dolan, told the Boston Globe that he heard that she had been dropped off at the hospital by a 47-year-old man.

Kimball says investigators are aware of who dropped Chloe off “but we haven’t disclosed any details of the investigation because it is still ongoing.”

“The people made hospital officials aware that they needed help,” Kimball says.

Kimball says state law requires the district attorney’s office to investigate all unattended and unexpected deaths.

“It doesn’t necessarily mean there is a criminal aspect to it,” she says.

“She was just a beautiful, kind girl,” Chloe’s mother, Deborah Goldsmith-Dolan told The Globe. “Everyone that met her loved her, she was so social.”

Goldsmith-Dolan said she last saw her daughter on Sunday when she dropped her off at a friend’s house.

“When I called the other friend, she said she was safe,” she said, according to Boston25News.

However, she became concerned when she didn’t hear from her daughter on Monday and went to the local police station to file a missing person’s report.

According to The Globe, Goldsmith-Dolan received a text 40 minutes later informing her that her daughter was at the hospital.

“It was awful,” she told Boston25News. “They asked me how to identify her. My husband had to identify her by the scars. She just dyed her hair, and she looked amazing.”

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“I’m in shock,” she told the station, “and I can’t believe I’m telling this story.”

Kimball says investigators are aware of “where Chloe was and who she was with and they are conducting an investigation to determine what exactly happened leading up to her death.”