Winnipeg mother returns home without answers after daughter’s death in the Dominican Republic

A Winnipeg mother has returned home to her grieving family after her daughter died last week while they were at a resort in the Dominican Republic.

Holly Twoheart walked straight into the arms of her family after getting off the escalator at Winnipeg’s Richardson International Airport Monday afternoon.

Her daughter, Danielle, died while the pair were on vacation. She was awakened by security the same night they landed and told Danielle may have fallen off a hotel balcony.

“I was crying, ‘That’s my baby,’” Holly told Global News Friday.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "I was crying, 'That's my baby,'" Holly told Global News Friday.

She said Danielle was found lying on the grass in front of the three-storey building where they were staying, but how she got there, and what exactly happened during the hours in between, remains unclear.

Danielle left behind two girls, aged eight and 10, and was a University of Manitoba student, studying to be a nurse, her mother said.

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Holly said she has been given several explanations about what happened that night and doesn’t know what to believe, including that Danielle tried to climb down the side of the building, and another that said security saw her hanging off a third-storey balcony and were too late to get her to safety.

“Why would she do that?” asked Holly. “They said that she was trying to climb down.”

“I don’t believe that… but that’s the story the hotel people gave me… I don’t think it was an accident. At first, they were trying to say she jumped.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "I don't believe that… but that's the story the hotel people gave me… I don't think it was an accident. At first, they were trying to say she jumped."

There were apparently no cameras that captured what happened leading up to Danielle’s death, said Holly, noting the only camera she saw at the hotel was in the lobby.

An autopsy is to be performed on Danielle, but in the meantime, the family is trying to raise funds to pay the hospital bill or the hospital won’t release Danielle’s body.

“I was so alone out there, nobody was there with me,” said Holly. “I was lost.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "I was so alone out there, nobody was there with me," said Holly. "I was lost."

Danielle’s daughters Alayah, 10 and Destinie, 8, will live with her, said Holly.

“They are left behind now without their mom,” she said. “I’m going to step up now and watch them.”