6-year-old drowns after sneaking out of house, hopping locked pool gate

A 6-year-old North Carolina girl drowned in her neighbor’s above-ground pool after she “snuck out” of her house and hopped a locked gate, her grieving mother reportedly said Tuesday.

Young Za’myah Judge and her 5-year-old brother, Za-muney, had walked out of the family’s Gastonia home while their mother thought they were in the girl’s bedroom watching cartoons.

“They had snuck out,” mom Christian Cash told the Gaston Gazette. “The whole time I’m thinking she’s in her bedroom, they’re outside.”

Za’myah had stacked several chairs against her neighbor’s pool gate, climbed over and then got in the water, Gastonia Police Department said in a news release. When she dropped below the surface, her brother ran for help, cops said.

“I said, ‘what pool?” Cash told the Gazette. “I started screaming and screaming and screaming.”

The kindergarten graduate nicknamed “BooBoo” was pulled from the pool but couldn’t be resuscitated, according to the newspaper. Police said they responded around 4:29 p.m..

The distraught mom said her children has asked to swim but the municipal pool has been closed due to a lifeguard staffing shortage, she told the Gazette.

“She still had her whole life ahead of her. She was 6 years old,” Cash told the newspaper. “She was pure. She was innocent.”

Cash was handed a dandelion by her son during the interview with the paper and told she was supposed to wish for something as she blew on it.

“I did, but it ain’t going to come true anyway,” Cash told Za-muney.