The sudden death of 6-year-old Gracelynn Vick last month shocked her family and the community in Mississippi. Jackie Polk, Gracelynn’s aunt, remembers her niece as an active girl who loved being outside, especially on the farm in Saucier where she lived with her mother, Vicki Hutcherson.

Polk, 55, tells PEOPLE, “Gracelynn was a very happy child.” “I mean, full of energy, full of sass.”

“She loved being outside,” her aunt says. “Give her sticks, mud, rocks, and a tree to climb.” She was really happy.”

The Harrison County Sheriff’s Office says that Gracelynn went outside to play in the front yard around 12 p.m. local time on April 13 and then vanished. The police looked for Gracelyn for hours before they found her around 6 p.m. and declared her dead.

Gracelynn’s death was ruled a “tragic accident” by Harrison County Sheriff Matt Haley four days after the fact. He said that she got stuck when she crawled into a nearby barrel, closed the lid from the inside, and played.

“There were no signs of foul play at all,” Haley said at the news briefing. What killed Madelynn hasn’t been revealed yet, but the sheriff said that the high temperature on the day she died meant that she “would have experienced a combination of heat stress and limited oxygen supply inside the barrel.”

“This effect would be similar to that of a child being stuck in a hot car during the summer,” he said.

The mother of Hutcherson, 46, called Polk, who lives 20 miles away in Hancock County, to say that her daughter had gone missing. Polk says, “She couldn’t find her.” “She had been calling out to her and she had been searching.”

Police and first rescuers were already at her sister’s farm when she got there. She says, “There were so many people everywhere.” “I mean, I counted at least five search dogs.”

Polk says that Gracelynn was found by an officer with the Mississippi Task Force Investigating. Polk says, “Vicky was next to the police officer.” She screamed when she was found, and I ran to her. Everything happened in a matter of seconds.

For Hutcherson, the death of Gracelynn is the latest heartbreak. In the past four years, she has lost three children.

Lawrence Hart, her son, died in July 2021. He was 17 years old. Polk says that her nephew used a feeding tube and never talked or walked, but “could recognize voices because we could see that based on his behavior and reaction.” In other words, they said that he was missing an enzyme in his liver.

Polk says, “Cayleen loved her brother.” “She climbed up on the bed when she was a little girl…” She would much rather climb than walk. She would lay down on his hospital bed and climb all over it to sleep.

Vicky, Gracelynn’s 13-year-old sister, died in an accident in March 2024. Polk says that the sisters had a strong bond and loved each other a lot. “There are a lot of videos of them on vacation.”

After six months, Hutcherson’s fiancé was told he had a rare cancer and passed away. Polk says, “Our family has been through hell on earth.” “Because of all the funerals, we’ve seen more of our family and extended family in the last four years than we ever have in our whole lives.”

When Gracelynn died on April 21, her funeral was held. The next day, there was a candlelight vigil at Saucier Park. A community group called the Kind Hearts Organization put on the event and raised money to pay for Gracelynn’s funeral and burial. Gracelynn goes to Saucier Elementary School. With extra money, a memory bench and a tree with pink flowers will be put there.

People talks to the head of the group, Dannette Necaise, who says that the group first learned about what happened to Gracelynn through social media while the girl was still missing. “I kept telling the other people in the group, ‘We need to do something.'” Necaise says, “I don’t know what we need to do, but we need to do something.”

Necaise remembers that about 150 people, including family, friends, and rescue workers who helped with the search, came to the vigil. “A pastor from the area came out to speak to the crowd and pray over everyone,” she says. “It was moving to see how many people this little child had touched.”