A Maine father has been arrested and charged with manslaughter nearly a year after his 13-month-old daughter died from hypothermia in a freezing room.
Shane McLaughlin, 37, is also facing three counts of child endangerment in connection with the death of Eleanora, Maine State Police said.
Eleanora was found dead on 28 December 2025. The Medical Examiner’s Office determined that she died from hypothermia and classified the death as accidental.
Investigators later said they had uncovered evidence supporting the manslaughter arrest, despite the medical examiner’s conclusion.
McLaughlin had previously described finding his daughter during an interview with a local television station. He said the room where his children slept was so cold that he “could see my breath”.
He said he had been using an electric space heater between the girls’ beds, adding that the bedroom door was open after an animal entered the room.
“I grabbed a package of Pop-Tarts, opened it up, and I went to wake up Eleanora, and that’s when I found her dead,” he said.
Eleanora’s mother, Erika, said the couple were estranged and that their three children had been living with McLaughlin in Maine while she was in West Virginia.
She said in April that she was “angry and upset” that McLaughlin had not been charged over her daughter’s death. Erika described Eleanora as a “happy child” and said she had been “almost walking on her own” during a family trip to the zoo.
Following McLaughlin’s arrest, Erika said state officials told her Eleanora had been found in bed covered in urine. That account has not been independently established in the information available.
The couple’s other two children were placed in the custody of Erika’s grandmother after the investigation began.
McLaughlin had written to the Maine Department of Health and Human Services after Eleanora’s death, saying she had been “living in a home alongside her siblings with no heat and no running water in the middle of a Maine winter”.
The case has prompted State Senator Jeff Timberlake to call for higher investigative standards in child deaths.
McLaughlin is being held at Penobscot County Jail on bail of 250,000 US dollars and is due to appear in court on Friday. He has not entered a plea, and it is unclear whether he has a lawyer.
