Texas law enforcement officials said Maxim Kuzmin's death may have been caused by an accidental fall from a slide or swing on a playground, a news report said Monday.
Local police concurred with medical experts' conclusions pointing to an accidental nature of death, Ector county sheriff Mark Donaldson told Kommersant.
"When we are talking about an accident, we, first of all, consider the possibility of falling from a children's slide or swings on the playground behind the house," Donaldson said.
Ector County District Attorney Bobby Bland said earlier that the boy's death "resulted from the rupture of small arteries in the intestinal mesentery following a blunt injury in the stomach area."
Maxim Kuzmin, who was adopted from a Russian orphanage by a U.S. family, died on Jan. 21, less than six months after arriving to his new home.
His death aggravated relations between Russia and the United States and prompted a string of accusations on both sides, with children's ombudsman Pavel Astakhov accusing U.S. officials of withholding information and U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul calling for an end to "sensational exploitations" of tragedy.
The investigation into the boy's death continues. Local police are seeking to determine how safe the equipment on the playground was where the boy was found, Kommersant reported.
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