Teen's death ruled a homicide

BROOKLYN (WABC) -- It was bad enough when the Rice family found out that their beloved Tiana had been found dead of an asthma attack.

It was even worse when they learned the 16-year-old's body had been lying in the morgue, unclaimed, for six weeks as the family frantically searched for her.

Just when the family thought they'd heard everything, the medical examiner's office called. Tiana had died of an asthma attack, but that asthma attack happened while the high school junior was being held down and raped.

Her death has been ruled a homicide and police are searching for anyone with details about the missing teen's final moments inside an abandoned building in East New York.

The Rice family and their attorney were meeting with the Brooklyn district attorney on Friday to hear the latest shocking details on this tragic case -- how a teenager who told her mother she was going to deliver a Christmas present to a friend in the Bronx, wound up dead in Brooklyn apparently after being sexually assaulted.

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