Two-year-old Grace Asmeralda Rodriguez died on Tuesday, February 7, 2023, after being shot at her home in Portage, Indiana. Born June 4, 2020, in Wyandotte, Michigan, she loved books and playing with bubbles, dinosaurs, and tomatoes and was the daughter of Nicos A. and Abigail Rodriguez and sister to Derek.

According to police, Grace wandered from her bedroom into her mother’s room, where she found a 9 mm handgun and was accidentally shot. She was taken to Comer Children’s Hospital in Chicago and died hours later. Her mother, Abigail Rodriguez, told investigators she usually kept the gun in the kitchen by day and on her nightstand at night but had forgotten to move it that day.

Abigail Rodriguez, then 29, was charged with neglect of a dependent and later agreed to plead guilty to a reduced count. The proposed plea would result in a suspended sentence of three years on probation with credit for time served; a judge was taking the agreement under consideration. Does anyone have information about the household circumstances or the investigation that could help clarify what happened?