Questions surround drowning in Sleepy Hollow

Martha Schneider can't understand how or why her 19-year-old daughter Anna, a certified SCUBA diver, drowned in the family's pool on the Fourth of July.

Sleepy Hollow police are also trying to determine what made the teenager drown.

"We don't know what happened," the elder Schneider said. "It was a very tragic accident."

Details surrounding what transpired before the teenager's drowning, also remain sketchy, police said.

Investigators have not yet interviewed the friend who was with the teenager at the time of her death, as she is extremely distraught.

They expected to speak with her by Tuesday.

"We're in no man's land," Sleepy Hollow Police Chief Jim Montalbano said. "You treat every death like a homicide until you know anything better."

Anna Schneider, a marine biology major at the University of Hawaii, had been swimming competitively since she was 5 years old, was captain of the varsity swim team at Dundee-Crown High School and even won a state competition for the freestyle, her mother said.

The 2008 DC graduate loved marine biology and was one of 20 students picked to study her craft in the Bahamas through a program run by the John G. Shedd Aquarium, her mother said. She also loved writing poetry, performing songs at the Clearwater Theater - she was a member of the high school's elite Chorale League before graduating - and took great delight in making people happy.

"What she believed is that true beauty comes from within and that it's all about ... loving yourself and others with an open heart," her mother said.

Paramedics were called at 4:55 a.m. to the home Schneider shared with her parents after a female friend pulled her out of the pool, officials said.

Montalbano said he does not know how Schneider got into the water.

Montalbano said paramedics administered CPR to the teen on the way to an area hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

Schneider, a world traveler, had just completed her freshman year at the University of Hawaii. The Kane County coroner's office on Monday evening was not releasing the results of the teenager's autopsy, completed earlier in the day.

A toxicology test will follow, Montalbano said, to determine whether drugs or alcohol may have played a role in Schneider's death - those results won't be known for at least two weeks.

Schneider is survived by her mother Martha, her father Larry, her brother Phil, his wife Lindsay and their sons Landon and Carson.

Visitation is scheduled from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday at Miller Funeral Home in West Dundee.

Services begin at 10 a.m. and will be held Friday at St. Catherine of Siena Catholic Church, also in West Dundee.

The family asks that people contribute donations to www.sharkallies.org, www.greenpeace.org and www.miami.edu/sharklab/supportus.html.

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