3-year-old girl falls into grease pit at ice cream shop, drowns

AUBURN, Alabama — Authorities say a three-year-old girl is dead after she fell into a grease pit at an Alabama ice cream shop and drowned.

The Opelika-Auburn News reports the girl's body was pulled Saturday, October 14th from an in-ground container used to trap cooking grease at Brewster's Real Ice Cream in Auburn.

Lee County Coroner Bill Harris said in a news release the death appears to be an accidental drowning. He said video evidence from the scene showed the girl playing with siblings when she apparently fell through a lid covering a grease pit on the ice cream parlor's property.

Harris said the girl was found several minutes later inside the grease container, which was six feet (1.8 meters) deep. He said no foul play is suspected. The girl's name was not immediately released.