Woman locked out of home found dead after getting stuck in window

Just minutes before Esther Kline became wedged in a narrow basement window on Tuesday and died, she sent her husband a text: “I wish the spare key was here.” Police say Kline had apparently locked herself out of the couple’s house on Mohawk Place, Lebanon, sometime around 8:20 a.m. while preparing to leave for work as a nurse manager at Pinnacle Health Services in Cincinnati. A combination of unlikely circumstances led to the 44-year-old woman’s death.



A larger basement window Kline had climbed through when she was locked out a previous time had been covered over by the extension of a deck and the addition of a bathroom downstairs. A spare key usually hidden in the garage was no longer in its place. A relative hadn’t returned it from a month ago. Neighbours would not have heard Kline’s cries for help. A six-foot privacy fence surrounds the back yard. “I’ve never seen anything like this particular case. It appears to be a tragic accident based on a series of events that may have started a month ago,” Lebanon Sgt. Jeff Mitchell said.

Kline became stuck when she tried to get through the window feet first, Mitchell said. Scuff marks on the basement wall from her shoes indicate she struggled to push herself free, he said. An autopsy at the Miami County Coroner’s Office concluded that Kline – a woman of average build at about 5’5” and 150 pounds – died from compressive asphyxiation, Mitchell said. “Essentially she couldn’t breathe. There no other injuries, no signs of foul play,” he said.


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The window, located inside a window well on the left side near the rear of the two-story soft yellow house, measured about three feet wide by one foot tall, Mitchell said. Investigators found evidence that Kline had tried to get into the house another way before settling on the basement window, he said. Kline’s husband, David, reported the discovery of her body about 6 p.m. Tuesday after he returned home from a two-day business trip. He told police that he responded to his wife’s 8:20 a.m. text about a half hour later but never received a reply. That leads police to believe that she died soon after she sent her last text.