A Dollar Tree store in Miami is now facing a jaw-dropping $50 million lawsuit. And the details? Enter the family of Helen Massiell Garay Sanchez.
According to reports, tourist Helen Massiell Garay Sanchez was found naked and dead inside the store’s freezer. Yes, the freezer, the place where frozen pizzas and budget ice cream go to nap.
Authorities also revealed that Helen had been drinking before she was discovered naked and dead. And now the legal battle is heating up faster than a microwave burrito.
Helen’s family isn’t joking around as they’re suing for a whopping $50 million. That’s generational money.
Helen Massiell Garay Sanchez, a 32-year-old anesthesiologist and mother of two children who was visiting Florida from Nicaragua, was found naked and dead inside the walk-in freezer in the stockroom of the Miami store in December.
Detectives quickly ruled out foul play, but a new toxicology report shows she had a blood-alcohol level of 0.11%, above the legal driving limit of 0.08%, WPLG reported Wednesday.
The cause of death was ruled as environmental hypothermia with ethanol, a form of alcohol, as a “contributory cause.”
Sanchez, a native of Nicaragua, does not appear to have bought anything in the store before she wandered into a restricted employee area and into the freezer, where an employee found her dead the next morning.
The freezer door was not blocked and had an emergency release that would have allowed her to open it, authorities confirmed last month.
According to a spokesperson from the Miami police;
“We’re not sure the state of mind of that woman, we’re not sure if she intentionally went into the freezer on her own will or if it was something completely accidental.”
The family through its lawsuit made some allegations.
Garay Sanchez’s family has since filed a $50 million lawsuit against Dollar Tree and the store’s manager, alleging the store failed to protect shoppers from “foreseeable risks of harm” — like walk-in freezers — and failed to establish “reasonable safety policies and procedures.”
The suit also alleges that the manager had been told the mom was missing and hadn’t been seen leaving that night, saying staff should have taken action to find a customer who “was missing or unaccounted for” after having been “placed on notice.”
In addition to $50 million, the lawsuit seeks money for medical and funeral expenses as well as legal fees.
Meanwhile, the internet is doing what it does best. Speculating, reacting and turning everything into a trending topic.
At the center of all this noise is a tragic loss of life. That part is real, and it is serious.
The courts will decide what happened legally. Investigators will piece together the timeline, and the public will keep watching for court update.
