Officials: No foul play in deaths of mom, daughter

BENTONVILLE — Officials with the Benton County sheriff’s office do not believe foul play was involved in the deaths of a Siloam Springs woman and her 22-month-old daughter.

Sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Shannon Jenkins said Friday that there was no evidence of any crime in the deaths of 35-year-old Carol Elaine Davidson and her daughter, RoseMarry Davidson.

Jenkins said the results of the investigation show that Carol Davidson’s death was accidental due to methamphetamine intoxication with contributing environmental hypothermia. The cause of the child’s death was left undetermined, but was most likely due to starvation or environmental hypothermia, Jenkins said. Environmental hypothermia is when natural conditions cause a body’s temperature to drop to abnormally low levels.

Family members reported Davidson and her daughter missing from Siloam Springs on Nov. 12.

The bodies were found in February near Lookout Tower Road, roughly 12 miles southeast of Siloam Springs, and taken to the state Crime Laboratory in Little Rock.

Jenkins said the medical examiner found methamphetamine in Carol Davidson’s system. Jenkins said they believe Davidson’s vehicle got stuck and she exited the vehicle with her daughter to get help. Jenkins said Davidson may have been disoriented because of the methamphetamine and wandered into the woods where she got lost.

The area where the bodies were found is a mile and a half from where searchers found Davidson’s vehicle in November, Benton County Chief Deputy Meyer Gilbert previously said.

Authorities searched the area for the pair after they disappeared in November, but the bodies weren’t discovered until a deer hunter found Carol Davidson’s body in February.

Gilbert said at Friday’s news conference that the location where the bodies were found was out of the search area.