Night of tragedy followed day of joy for girl killed in window fall

Yoriani Encarnacion, like most six-year-old girls, loved to dance.

And at a family gathering on Sunday, she spent most of her time swaying to merengue and bachata. 

The following day, shortly before midnight, Yoriani was playing with other children — jumping on the bed inside her third floor apartment — when she fell out of an open window.

Yoriani had danced so much the day before, “it was almost like she was saying goodbye,” Arelis Cedeno, the girl’s aunt, told NJ Advance Media on Tuesday.

Yoriani was taken to University Hospital where she was pronounced dead at about 4:30 a.m., Acting Essex County Prosecutor Robert D. Laurino said.

The Essex County Prosecutor’s Office Homicide/Major Crimes Task Force, which includes detectives from the Newark Police Department, is investigating the death.

The family, who are originally from the Dominican Republic, is “devastated,” said Cedeno, who spoke briefly in Spanish on South 14th Street Tuesday afternoon.

Cedeno was leaving Utopia Apartments in Newark, where the girl, an only child, lived with her mother. Her father lives in the Dominican Republic and is aware of her death, the aunt said.

“We’re very sad,” Cedeno said.

The window of the third-floor apartment did not have a window guard. 

A woman working in a grocery store on the first floor of the apartment building said she remembers seeing the girl with her mother but she thought they had just moved there recently.

Karen Yi may be reached at kyi@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter at @karen_yi or on Facebook.