'Tragedy is the right word,' Bibb DA says of Rigby girl's death

Since early spring, authorities here did all they could to get to the bottom of a troubling unknown: the unexplained death of a little girl.

On Thursday, seven months to the morning that 4-year-old Carlene "Carly" Jane Rigby was found dead, officials revealed their findings, their best guess as to how she died.

The Bibb County district attorney, himself a father of three, spoke and answered reporters' questions in a meeting room on the seventh floor of the Bibb County Courthouse. He did his best to explain the near inexplicable: child's play gone fatally wrong.

"I think tragedy is the right word," District Attorney David Cooke said. "Our thoughts and prayers are with the Rigby family."

Cooke told how Carly had, in all likelihood, fallen dead in a game with her older brother, who was 9 at the time. Investigators say they learned that Carly sometimes played a game with him, a game that involved him tying her up with window blind cords.

The morning of March 22, her father found her with a blind cord around her neck, dead of asphyxia by strangulation in a bedroom at their home off Mumford Road in Macon.

No criminal charges are expected against Carly's parents or her brother, Cooke said.

The Rigbys, though, aren't buying the DA's explanation.

Their lawyer said Thursday afternoon that while Carly's mother and father, Jodi and Jason "Hod" Rigby, were happy to have been cleared of wrongdoing in the matter, they were "disappointed that law enforcement has made the determination that their 10-year-old son is responsible for Carly's accidental death."

The lawyer, Gregory L. Bushway of Macon, said, "Mr. and Mrs. Rigby do not believe their son had any hand in it -- or did anything to cause Carly's accidental death."

It was June before investigators learned of the game that Carly and her brother supposedly played. The children were said to leap off a bed into laundry piles. Their game would end with Carly being tied up.

A Sunday School teacher at the Rigbys' church recalled that a few months before Carly died, her brother had, in passing, mentioned the tie-up game to the teacher.

It apparently hadn't dawned on the teacher that the game may have claimed the girl's life until after news emerged about how Carly died.

Investigators later deemed the Sunday School teacher's tip credible.

"It fit the way a child would relate a common occurrence to a trusted grown-up that they talk to," Cooke said. "It just made sense. ... It just fit the rest of the evidence."

Details of the investigation into Carly's death and prosecutors' conclusions about it were first reported in Thursday's Telegraph and on the newspaper's website.

Thursday morning's news conference, however, was the first time authorities had opened up about what apparently happened to the child.

"The cord around her neck was tied in a way that appeared to be intentional," Cooke said.

He later referred to the apparent game as a "freak accident."

"Apparently," Cooke went on, "based on the very intentional way that this knot was tied, and the surrounding circumstances, the thing that makes the most sense is that this was a part of that game that went awry."

The DA also mentioned that Carly's parents were uncooperative and at times "not honest" with authorities.

Cooke said Jodi Rigby, 34, at first didn't tell investigators where she was the night or morning Carly died. Cooke said the mother later said she'd been with a boyfriend in Warner Robins.

"We don't make hasty judgments," Cooke said. "We gather the evidence, and we follow it wherever it leads."

Asked about Carly's parents' knowledge of the game, he said, "They've never admitted to us that they knew about this game. Cords are dangerous enough for young children to begin with, but when a child is intentionally tying up another child repeatedly as part of a game, that is a dangerous thing. I would caution parents to talk with their kids tonight, the same way I'm gonna talk to my kids."

Pressed on how the parents couldn't have known about such a game, Cooke said that "most parents have some period of time where their kids are not before them. This is the kind of thing that could happen to anybody based on the evidence that we have."

He said someone in his office had spoken with the Rigby family's lawyer about investigators' conclusions "so that they would know as far as we're concerned the case is over. ... They should not expect to be prosecuted."

Cooke said Carly's brother had never been questioned by authorities about the game. Cooke said investigators tried to speak to him early on and got nowhere.

And by the time the Sunday School teacher came forward and informed officials of the supposed tie-up game, the family wasn't talking, the DA said.

The DA said the parents' lack of cooperation "with the police after your child dies does not necessarily mean that you caused the child to die. ... I'm not gonna try to get inside their heads."

To contact writer Joe Kovac Jr., call 744-4397.

This story was originally published October 22, 2015 at 6:38 PM with the headline "'Tragedy is the right word,' Bibb DA says of Rigby girl's death ."