Watch an extended clip of an interview with Captain Chromik of the Lucas County Sheriff\u2019s Office in the video at the end of this article.<\/p>\n
TOLEDO, Ohio (WTVG) – The Lucas County Coroner released autopsy results<\/a> Monday for two people whose bodies were recovered from Lake Erie, confirming both died by drowning as investigators continue to piece together what happened aboard a boat<\/a> on the night of July 1.<\/p>\n The coroner confirmed the body recovered Sunday is that of 11-year-old Angelique Cunningham<\/a>, with drowning listed as her cause of death. <\/p>\n The body of 38-year-old Jonathan Ciha \u2014 the owner of the boat \u2014 was pulled from the lake three days earlier. The coroner also ruled his death a drowning.<\/p>\n Charges filed, key questions unanswered<\/p>\n The Lucas County Sheriff\u2019s Office charged Kristen Gerrie with child endangerment following Angelique\u2019s disappearance during the boat ride. It\u2019s since been upgraded to a felony charge.<\/p>\n Court documents allege Gerrie placed Angelique on a boat with Ciha. The boat left Meinke Marina West at 10:36 p.m. and was on the water for less than 15 minutes before the young girl was missing, according to charging records.<\/p>\n 13 Action News asked whether Gerrie is cooperating and telling investigators what happened.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s telling her truth, however; we believe there\u2019s a much bigger truth out there,\u201d said Capt. Robert Chromik of the Lucas County Sheriff\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n Investigators said Gerrie never called 911 after Ciha and Angelique went into the water. Instead, she swam to shore and called a friend to pick her up. It was Angelique\u2019s mother who called for help.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t know what happened on that boat. What we do know \u2014 we have two people that have been determined to have drowned in Lake Erie, and we have an adult female that left that scene after she was responsible for Angelique Cunningham\u2019s care,\u201d said Chromik. \u201cAnd then hours later decided to tell somebody that she was missing, which also caused another issue because we had two separate investigations going on.\u201d<\/p>\n Gerrie described as close family friend<\/p>\n Authorities say Gerrie also never contacted Angelique\u2019s mother after the incident, despite being described as a close family friend.<\/p>\n \u201cShe was not a babysitter. She was a very close friend to the family, and they felt comfortable enough to allow her to go with her on a recreational boat ride,\u201d Chromik said.<\/p>\n Investigators said Angelique was not a strong swimmer. After swimming to shore, Gerrie knocked on a stranger\u2019s door seeking help.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was just being a good Samaritan and helping somebody out that came to his door asking for help,\u201d Chromik said.<\/p>\n Gerrie has since been interviewed by both the Sheriff\u2019s Office and Toledo Police.<\/p>\n Investigation ongoing; social media rumors addressed<\/p>\n Investigators said no evidence was collected from the docking area and are not releasing details about evidence gathered elsewhere.<\/p>\n Chromik also addressed social media posts circulating about Ciha.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of people have questions, but for the most part, what people need to be very careful about is that the narratives on social media about Mr. Ciha and the statements made about him \u2014 they have no credence to who that man was,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI think this is a tragic situation for both families that lost a loved one. The only person that has the answers is the person that we charged for child endangerment today,\u201d Chromik said.<\/p>\n Investigators are still working to figure out what unfolded on the boat.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re wrestling with all of these questions. They\u2019re wrestling with the fact they had to deal with the death of a child,\u201d Chromik said of investigators handling the case. \u201cThat\u2019s not easy on anyone, especially with a family that we truly respect. They held together throughout this incident, throughout the weekend, and we don\u2019t want to be the bearers of bad news and unfortunately that\u2019s the direction this went in.\u201d <\/p>\n Latest Local News<\/a> | First Alert Weather<\/a> | Crime<\/a> | National<\/a> | 13abc Originals<\/a><\/p>\n Copyright 2026 WTVG. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Watch an extended clip of an interview with Captain Chromik of the Lucas County Sheriff\u2019s Office in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":235758,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[101093,136,138,137,102093,101479,102091,102092,102090,101094],"class_list":["post-237033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-angelique-cunningham","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-jonathon-ciha","tag-kristen-gerrie","tag-lake-erie-boat","tag-missing-boater","tag-missing-lake-erie","tag-missing-toledo-girl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}