Toddler Leads Cop to Mom's Body

A desperately sad story from Burton-on-Trent, England, could have been even sadder if an alert off-duty cop hadn't passed the scene. Police say the officer and his wife stopped their car when they spotted a 2-year-old girl walking alone at around 11am one day last week, the Guardian reports. The officer says she told him, "I am going to nursery. I can't wake mummy up," before leading him back to her home, where he found the body of the mother, 30-year-old Nicolla Rushton, the Worksop Guardian reports.

The little girl is now with other family members, and while police haven't disclosed how Rushton died, they say they are not treating the death as suspicious. A spokesman for Staffordshire Police praised the officer's actions. It was "a brilliant piece of work by him that shows that we are never off duty," he said in a statement, per the Guardian. "The officer and his wife took the time to look after the little girl and stay with her until emergency services arrived. Sadly, nothing could be done to help the woman." (More Britain stories.)