This is Sad

And it happened in the next town up the road from us.

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) -- An autopsy was planned Monday on a 2 1/2-year-old girl found dead after her mother and 6-year-old sister drowned in Wardsboro.

Police, meanwhile, continued their probe into the actions of Nicole Waring, 40, of Wolcott, hoping to determine why she avoided a would-be rescuer and plunged into the 36-degree waters of Wardsboro Brook carrying her 6-year-old daughter, Dakota Waring.

The bodies of Waring and her older daughter were recovered Saturday. Autopsies indicated deaths consistent with drowning, according to Vermont State Police.

Grace Waring's autopsy was set for Monday. Still unclear is how the toddler ended up in the water, although police believe she was with her sister and mother before that.

"We have the results of this incident, in that we have three untimely deaths," said Lt. Kraig LaPorte, a Vermont State Police trooper in Rockingham. "The focus of the investigation now is `What brought these events together to occur?' That's what we'll be looking at. Hopefully, we'll have some answers."

He said police knew of no reason why Waring -- who disappeared with the girls from her parents' home about 1 a.m. Saturday -- would be afraid of police or trying to avoid them. According to police, a Vermont State Police sergeant tried to rescue her from the brook but she ignored his pleas and entered the roiling waters of the brook before being swept away.

A woman who answered the telephone at the home of Waring's parents declined comment on the deaths Monday.