Girl, 3, left out in hall as cold as 5 degrees freezes to death while adults drank, mother blames sleepwalking

A tot recently froze to death in Russia, and her mother has claimed that she was “sleepwalking”. Three-year-old Angelina was found dead near the front door of her home on December 4, after being left in a hallway with a temperature as low as -15 Celcius (5 Fahrenheit), state reports. She was found dead by her 23-year-old mother Svetlana Kuleshova. 

Angelina’s family, including her 23-year-old partner Alexander, were reportedly celebrating the toddler’s younger sister’s first birthday on the evening before the tragic incident occurred. The mother has been accused of kicking Angelina out of the house because she was "spoiling the party" while the adults were drinking, according to KP-Chelyabinsk.

But, Svetlana has denied the allegations and claimed that her daughter reached the hallway by walking in her sleep. She said, “They write this, but it's not true.”

“She (Angelina) went to bed, then we went to bed, and when we woke up, she was in the hallway. It was an accident. She was a sleepwalker. She went to the hall and failed to return back. Most likely she didn’t find the door handle in the dark and could not go back in,” she stated further. 

Recounting the events from the night before the incident, she told the newspaper, “I put Angelina to bed and she fell asleep before midnight. We watched a little TV and went to bed too. When we woke up in the morning, we did not find her in her bed. We found her in the hall. She was lying on the floor.”

The police who have stated hyperthermia as the cause of Angelina’s death have reportedly filed a case against her mother for causing her daughter's death due to “negligence.”

Local law enforcement official Mikhail Krokhin said: "The investigation established that the girl left the indoor area of the house on her own. She walked in the hall where she suffered from hypothermia and died.”
 
Svetlana’s one-year-old sister is placed in an orphanage until the investigation concludes. Reports suggest that a criminal case was initiated under clause 1 of Art. 109 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and Svetlana will be facing a maximum of two years in prison. Meanwhile, her partner isn’t facing any charges. According to KP-Chelyabinsk the man who lives with Angelina’s mother is not her husband or the father of her two children. The biological father of the daughters lives separately. 

The newspaper further states that the news surrounding Angelina's devastating death irked the public, and people on social media slammed the mother and her partner for sharing pictures and posts on social media, including one story in which she wrote, “I love my daughters.”

On December 11, a Russian teen died similarly after getting stranded in the world's coldest inhabited region for a week following incorrect navigation. Sergey Ustinov reportedly died when the temperature dropped to -50 Celcius (-122 Fahrenheit) after he got stuck on Russia’s Road of Bones following Google Map’s instructions in order to use the shortcut. Ustinov is said to have been accompanied by a friend named Vladislav Istomin, who is in a critical condition now after suffering acute hyperthermia. The reports suggest that two teenagers got stranded after a wooden spoke on the road damaged their vehicle’s radiator.