Maine toddler’s Christmas Day death ruled a homicide

Maine officials have ruled the Christmas Day death of a 3-year-old girl as a homicide.

Makinzlee Handrahan was pronounced dead Sunday, after the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department responded to an Edgecomb home that morning for a report of a child who was not breathing, the Maine Department of Public Safety said.

The Maine State Police Major Crimes Unit got involved in the investigation, as is protocol with all child deaths in Maine, according to the Department of Public Safety. 

The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Augusta ruled Handrahan’s death a homicide following an autopsy on Monday. The Department of Public Safety said earlier that the Attorney General’s Office had requested the girl’s cause and manner of death be withheld, but did not say why. 

Detectives continue to investigate the circumstances surrounding the toddler’s death, a department spokesperson said. 

A neighbor told the Portland Press Herald that investigators wanted to know if they had heard loud screaming or banging from the apartment where the toddler and her family lived. The neighbor said they hadn’t. 

A Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson declined to comment to the newspaper on whether the girl and her family had prior interactions with the state, citing the ongoing investigation and statutory prohibitions. 

The context

The Press Herald noted that Maine’s child protective services program has come under scrutiny in recent years following high profile cases of abuse and neglect.

“Those who work within this system care deeply about children and families and the recent high-profile cases involving child fatalities have been challenging for our staff and partners, our communities, and our State,” the state’s Office of Child and Family Services noted in its 2021 annual child welfare report.

Data from Federal Fiscal Year 2019 — the most recent year for which data was available — found that Maine fell below the national rate of abuse-related child fatalities per 100,00 children, according to the report. The national average was 2.51 deaths per 100,000, compared to a rate of 1.21 in Maine during the same time period. 

A state dashboard shows a total of 30 child fatalities reported in 2021 — the highest the state had seen since 2007, the earliest year included on the dashboard. Only one of the 2021 deaths was listed as a homicide.

The Office of Child and Family Services pledged in its report to work to “ensure Maine is doing everything possible to protect all Maine children.”

Abby Patkin

Staff Writer

Abby Patkin is a general assignment news reporter whose work touches on public transit, crime, health, and everything in between.

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