DA's office: Macon girl strangled in blinds likely died in game with sibling

A 4-year-old Macon girl found dead in her bedroom in March with her neck tangled in a window blind cord appears to have died playing a game with her 9-year-old brother, authorities now believe.

For months, Carlene "Carly" Jane Rigby's March 22 death puzzled investigators.

An autopsy report by the GBI declared that she had died of strangulation and she was deemed a victim of homicide. But after getting a tip from a member of the Rigby family's church, officials have since decided the circumstances of Carly's asphyxiation were in all likelihood not criminal. No charges are expected.

A letter about the case was sent last month from the Bibb County District Attorney's Office to the county's director of the Division of Family and Children Services. A copy of the letter was obtained by The Telegraph.

"The most likely scenario by which (Carly) came to suffer asphyxia due to strangulation involves a game that she and her (then-9-year-old brother) played in which he tied her up with the blind cords," the letter says.

The letter does not say whether the brother himself ever confirmed for investigators -- who included Bibb sheriff's deputies and FBI agents, among others -- how Carly died.

The Sept. 30 letter was sent to DFACS to inform caseworkers of the findings because some of the Rigby children, taken out of their home during the probe, were believed to be returning soon to their parents. Carly had two other siblings, a brother and a sister, who at the time of her death were 6 and 2.

Authorities first learned of the cord-tying game in June when the church member, a woman who'd been the 9-year-old Rigby boy's Sunday School teacher, recalled the brother mentioning such a game three months or so before Carly died.

According to the letter, the boy told the Sunday School teacher "that he and Carly enjoyed jumping from their beds into large piles of laundry and that he would tie Carly up with blind cords." The brother told the teacher that Carly "was always able to get herself free."

The teacher apparently thought nothing of the game until she heard how Carly died.

District Attorney David Cooke said Wednesday he would have a news conference to discuss the case at 10 a.m. Thursday. He declined any comment until then.

The letter, written by Chief Assistant District Attorney Nancy Scott Malcor and sent to DFACS Director Shannon Fields, goes on to note that Carly's "manner of death was best classified as homicide" and that there was "no evidence to suggest that either of the child's parents are criminally responsible."

Given the age of Carly's older brother "and the attendant circumstances," the letter adds, "prosecution in juvenile court is not reasonable."

The two-story Rigby home is in the Highlands subdivision on Ivy Brook Way, off Mumford Road about a mile west of Napier Avenue.

Carly's half brother, Glenn Milton Price, from their mother's first marriage, died at age 5 in 2005 when he was hit by a car in Newnan. The Sunday in March that Carly was found dead in her bedroom would have been Glenn's 15th birthday.

Carly's father, Jason "Hod" Rigby, 33, told authorities that he found her body near the head of her bed when he went to wake her for church that morning.

Early in the investigation, he and Carly's 34-year-old mother, Jodi Rigby, were considered "persons of interest."

The DFACS letter says Jodi Rigby was "initially a suspect," in part, "because she lied to investigators regarding her whereabouts during the evening of March 21st and early morning hours of the 22nd. However, she eventually disclosed that she had spent the night in Warner Robins with a boyfriend, ... (who) has provided an alibi for her, and other evidence confirms that she was not at the home during the time of Carly's tragic death."

Jason Rigby was the only parent at home the night Carly died, investigators believe.

"No evidence of his involvement in her death has been uncovered," the letter says.

Information from Telegraph archives was used in this report. To contact writer Joe Kovac Jr., call 744-4397.

This story was originally published October 22, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "DA's office: Macon girl strangled in blinds likely died in game with sibling ."