The attorney for the family of Aliyah Jaico spoke to KPRC 2′s Bryce Newberry as the 8-year-old was laid to rest Thursday.
Jaico’s body was found Saturday evening by first responders. She was discovered wedged deep in a pool pipe at the DoubleTree by Hilton Houston Brookhollow, located at Northwest Freeway and Pinemont Drive.
On Thursday, family held a graveside service for Aliyah at the Brookside Memorial Home and Cemetery located off the Eastex Freeway. A balloon release was also held in remembrance of her.
The family’s attorney, Richard Nava, spoke at the cemetery. He filed a wrongful death lawsuit Monday.
“This is probably the worst day that my client will ever experience her entire life, along with the family,” he said. “As news reports have been coming out, she’s been, and I’ve been telling her about the violations, about the different things that they’re finding out, about how the pool was improperly inspected.”
Those violations are listed in a recent inspection report by the City of Houston’s Health Department, which prompted the closure of the pool.
“It’s just going to be systematic failure after systematic failure, from the maintenance department to whoever remodeled the pool to the owners to, who else?” Nava said. “I liken this to almost a kill box, if I could say. You have your daughter go in for just a weekend swim and disappear within the blink of an eye.”
The hotel’s lazy river pool was built in 2018, according to City of Houston records but the plans approved by the city lacked a major component: the system that made it function as a lazy river.
The components of the lazy river system - the large pipe openings and the pumps - were not part of the approved construction plans and they had not been inspected before Jaico’s tragic death, Houston Health Department inspector Curtis Cagle said.
“We approved the construction plans but we didn’t approve all the items that were actually constructed on site,” Cagle told only KPRC 2 a day after he made the discovery.
Nava says this situation was completely preventable.
“The family knows it’s an accident. The family understands now. And mom, of course, thinks that is, is there something else I could have done? That’s what she says,” Nava said. “Because obviously there’s a lot of people out there saying, well, if mom was watching her child. There was nothing she could have done. That poor baby was pulled into that hole and pipe violently. And it’s an absolute tragedy and it was horrific.”