Coroner: Autopsy results for 3-year-old Nelson girl ‘inconclusive’

NELSON – Results of an autopsy conducted Tuesday on the 3-year-old Nelson girl who died early Saturday are inconclusive, pending the results of more lab and toxicology tests, Whiteside County Coroner Joe McDonald said Wednesday.

As is usual, those results could take several weeks, he said.

Tamsin Miracle Sauer’s death is under investigation by the Lee County Sheriff’s Department and the Department of Children and Family Services.

No one is charged in her death.

The Lee County State’s Attorney and the State Police are assisting in the investigation, Lee County Sheriff John Simonton said Monday. He declined to release any further information.

Emergency responders received a 9-1-1 call from a home in the 100 block of East Bassett Street around 1:30 a.m. Saturday, McDonald said. The girl, who was unresponsive, was taken to CGH Medical Center in Sterling, where she was pronounced dead about an hour later.

Tamsin lived with her parents, Frank and Dana Sauer, five sisters and two half-sisters in Nelson, a village of about 170 in western Lee County. Frank Sauer also goes by the first name “Joe,” according to public records.

The five Sauer children now are in DCFS custody, while the half-sisters, who were Dana’s girls, and another half-sister, who is Frank’s daughter and who stayed at the home sometimes, are with their father and mother, DCFS spokesman Bill McCaffrey and the two girls’ father said.

DCFS has had prior interactions with the family, McCaffrey said. He declined to provide more information until the investigation progresses.

McDonald Funeral Home in Rock Falls is handling Tamsin’s arrangements.