A 2-year-old girl spent days beside her mother’s lifeless body: She tried to stop the bleeding from her wounds with toilet paper

Nicole was 2 years old and didn’t understand why her mom wouldn’t wake up.

In November 1994, Stephan Smerk left his barracks in Arlington, United States, intending to take someone’s life; later, he confessed to the police that he didn’t care who it was.

That’s how he ended up in West Springfield, where he chose a house at random. Inside were Robin Lawrence, a 37-year-old artist, and her daughter Nicole. Stephan had never taken someone’s life before, but that day he did so brutally, stabbing her 49 times.

When Robin didn’t answer her calls, Ollie, her husband, who was traveling in the Bahamas, contacted her friend Laurie Lindberg and asked her to go to the house to see how his family was doing. She climbed in through a window and found the horrifying scene.

However, one of the things that most caught the police’s attention was the bloodied tissues scattered around the house, especially near Robin’s body.

Detective Mark Garman believes little Nicole used them to tend to her mom. She tried to stop the bleeding and save her life. Unfortunately, this innocent act didn’t work.

Little Nicole stayed close to her mom until she was found alone in a hallway, with a diaper that hadn’t been changed in days and blood on the walls. The girl had received a liver transplant shortly after birth, so she was severely dehydrated.

Twenty-nine years later, DNA from