News came yesterday that former child actress Sophie Nyweide has died at the age of 24, and now police in Vermont have said they aren’t ruling out foul play.
The actor, best known for playing the daughter of Michelle Williams and Gael García Bernal’s characters in the 2009 romantic drama Mammoth, was found ‘lifeless on a riverbed’, police say.
Bennington Police have reportedly confirmed Nyweide was found not far from a high school in Bennington – a small town of 15,000 people in Vermont, US – at around 4am on April 14. She was declared dead at the scene.
Her body was found near a lean-to – a makeshift structure made from downed trees – and police are looking at multiple causes of death, Bennington Police told TMZ.
Officials said an autopsy is pending, including a toxicology report.
The outlet report that a man was with Nyweide at the time of her death, though he is ‘cooperating with cops’ and is not a person of interest in the case.
Police also told the US outlet Nyweide was with other people at the wooden structure – which she’d visited previously – before her death. Officials are tracking down these individuals for interviews.
Nyweide’s family released a statement yesterday, saying that the former child star had ‘self-medicated’ her trauma, indicating that she was a troubled individual.
A tribute from her family said: ‘Sophie was a kind and trusting girl. Often this left her open to being taken advantage of by others.
‘She wrote and drew voraciously, and much of this art depicts the depth she had, and it also represents the pain she suffered. Many of her writings and artwork are roadmaps of her struggles and traumas.
‘Even with those roadmaps, diagnoses and her own revelations, those closest to her, plus therapists, law enforcement officers and others who tried to help her, are heartbroken their efforts couldn’t save her from her fate.
It went on: ‘She self-medicated to deal with all the trauma and shame she held inside, and it resulted in her death. She repeatedly said she would “handle it” on her own and was compelled to reject the treatment that might possibly have saved her life.’
‘Sophie. A life ended too soon. May it not be in vain. May we all learn from her brief life on earth and do better. Yes, we must all protect our children and do better.’
The obituary asked that in lieu of gifts or flowers, they would ask people to make a donation to RAINN in Sophie’s name, a charity that supports survivors of sexual violence.
Who was Sophie Nyweide?
Sophie Nyweide was born on July 8 2000 in Burlington, Vermont. She made her acting debut at the age of six as the titular character in Bella, a romance drama also starring Eduardo Verástegui and Tammy Blanchard.
Over the next few years, Nyweide starred in an episode of Law & Order, And Then Came Love, Margot at the Wedding, and New York City Serenade.
However, her defining role came when she played Jackie Vidales in 2009 film Mammoth, which follows a father who leaves his doting family (including Nyweide as the daughter) for a business trip to Thailand with huge consequences.
Nyweide then appeared in Shadows & Lies in 2010, and in the same year starred in An Invisible Sign alongside Jessica Alba. Next came Mistakes Are Made, a 2011 short, before she starred in Noah – her next feature film three years later.
In an interview at Hamptons International Film Festival, Nyweide – aged 10 – said it was ‘amazing’ and ‘so much fun’ to work with Alba on the film, and noted how it was only those two who worked together on the set for the whole six weeks of filming.
Her last role was as Sophie in a short film called Born Again, and her final appearance came in 2015 in the social experiment TV show, What Would You Do? which takes controversial situations to the streets of the US to see how the general public will react.
Her mother, actor Shelly Gibson – known for her 70s and 80s films including Dust to Malibu, St. Elsewhere, and All My Children – posted a tribute remembering her daughter on social media.
‘RIP, my Sophie. She graced us for far too short a time. My daughter was a light for all who met her,’ she said.
‘For those us of who were truly close with Sophie, we are gutted and will need a long time to get over her passing. I know I never will. God I love my daughter. I want her back. Fly high sweetheart – you always could.’
In a 2010 interview, Gibson said her daughter’s love for acting came from an upbringing surrounded by film.
She recalled how her childhood was spent watching movies at the Village Picture Shows Cinema in Manchester, including Nancy Meyers’ Something’s Gotta Give, which Nyweide enjoyed from the age of four.
‘She grew up in this movie theater and slept in the movie theater and had a little bed in the projection booth and watched many movies,’ she said.
Nyweide’s family nodded to her love of acting in their tribute.
‘She dreamed (more like demanded!) to be an actor, without ever knowing her mother was an actor, so she did that too with an ease we all marvelled about,’ they said.
‘She seemed happiest on a movie set, becoming someone else. It was a safe place for her and she relish from the casts and crews who nourished her talent and her well being.’
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