Twenty-three-month old Nyia Page was barefoot, bottomless and breathing when her father left her to die in the sub-freezing cold in a wooded area of Rankin, police said.

William Page

An Allegheny County police affidavit said searchers on Sunday found a disposable diaper, a small electric blanket and tiny footprints in the snow leading to Nyia's frozen body.

She was found a day after her parents, William L. Page and Darlene Robinson, reported her missing from her house on First Street, Braddock, on Saturday.

Mr. Page told a neighbor that "somebody took my daughter out of the house" and indicated to police that some items were missing from his basement, including the electric blanket.

County detectives quickly zeroed in on him as their suspect, and he confessed Sunday, according to police.

He was being held without bail on charges of homicide, kidnapping and simple assault pending a preliminary hearing Wednesday in Municipal Court.

Nyia Page

He had been in custody since Saturday on charges that he had molested a 6-year-old boy during the early morning of that day and had beaten the boy with a belt on previous occasions.

County police discovered the abuse when the boy was being interviewed by a child specialist at Mercy Hospital about the disappearance of Nyia.

On that same day, Mr. Page initially told police that Nyia, who slept in a third-floor bedroom, could only "scoot" on her rear end and would not go downstairs on her own. But after the interview with the boy, detectives interviewed him again and asked if he knew where Nyia was. This time, according to the affidavit, he told them to search the woods "near the railroad tracks."

The next day searchers found a diaper on the tracks and then discovered Nyia's body face down in the snow in the woods behind the Hawkins Village public housing complex.

During a third interview, police said, Mr. Page confessed.

He said that he had gotten out of bed to go to the bathroom when he saw Nyia on the second floor, playing with a mirror in the hall.

He said he told her to go back to bed and returned to the first floor, but she followed him. He told her to go upstairs again, the affidavit says, but she screamed.

Angered, he said he back-handed her in the chest, causing her to fall backwards and hit her head, knocking her unconscious.

Mr. Page said he ran to the basement to get a towel and the blanket. He said he used the towel to wipe Nyia's head, wrapped her in the blanket and carried her outside to the railroad tracks near the Overland Street overpass a few blocks away.

He left her there, he told police, and went back home to bed. He said his daughter was unconscious but breathing when he left her, wearing only a sweater.

Nyia appears to have wandered farther into the woods before she died of hypothermia and exposure.

Robert A. Waters Funeral Homes, with offices in McKeesport and Clairton, is handling arrangements for Nyia.

Visitation will be from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. today at Good Hope Baptist Church, 415 Lincoln Avenue, Larimer. Services will follow visitation at the church.