A customer reportedly asked a Miami discount store manager to check the cameras for a woman who had not come home. According to a new lawsuit, the manager told an employee not to look while that same woman lay trapped in a walk-in freezer in the back of the store.
A Doctor, a Discount Store, and a Fatal Night
The woman was Dr. Helen Massiell Garay Sanchez, a 32-year-old anesthesiologist and mother of two originally from Nicaragua. Her family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit in Florida state court that seeks 50 million dollars from Dollar Tree, arguing that basic safety measures and simple steps by employees could have saved her life.
The case centers on a Dollar Tree located on Southwest 8th Street in Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood. According to reporting by Law & Crime, Miami police confirmed that Sanchez was found dead inside a freezer at that store in mid December. Her body was discovered in a restricted, employee-only area.
Police told the outlet that no foul play was suspected at that time and that the investigation remained open. The civil lawsuit, filed on behalf of Sanchez’s family, does not allege an intentional killing. Instead, it accuses Dollar Tree and a store manager of negligence and a series of failures before and after Sanchez went missing.
A Customer Vanishes, Cameras Go Unchecked
The complaint lays out a brief but critical timeline, based largely on surveillance footage and witness accounts. Sanchez was allegedly seen walking into the store on a Saturday evening shortly before closing. Employees noticed her inside. According to the filing, she did not buy anything and was later seen heading toward a freezer in the back storage area.
At some point after that, Sanchez “became trapped inside a walk-in freezer located within the Dollar Tree Store and thereafter sustained fatal injuries,” the lawsuit states.
What happened next is central to the family’s claims. The complaint says that a customer raised concerns that Sanchez had not come out of the store and asked the manager, identified in the filing as Yanelkis Gonzalez, to review the surveillance cameras to check whether she had left.
Instead, the lawsuit alleges, Gonzalez “affirmatively instructed the Dollar Tree employee not to review the surveillance footage.” The filing argues that once the manager was “placed on actual notice” that Sanchez was missing and had not exited the store, he had a duty to take steps to locate her. That could have included reviewing video, checking restricted areas, or calling for assistance.
According to the lawsuit, none of that happened. Staff closed the store and went home. Sanchez remained inside.
Family of woman found dead in Dollar Store freezer files $50M lawsuit. https://t.co/IFBGxZRBDd pic.twitter.com/lnrFqbxJz1
— Local 12/WKRC-TV (@Local12) February 1, 2026
Body Found in an Employee-Only Freezer
The next day, an employee called 911 after discovering a woman’s body in a freezer in the back of the store. A Miami Police Department spokesperson told Law & Crime, “We received a call from an employee, who reported that there was a deceased woman inside of the business, inside of the freezer.” The spokesperson added, “No foul play is suspected, but it’s still an active and ongoing investigation.”
Local CBS affiliate WFOR, also known as CBS Miami, reported that police scanner audio captured a 911 dispatcher stating, “Complainant found a naked female in the cooler of the store.” That detail has not been further explained in public records or filings, and authorities have not released a full autopsy report in the materials cited by Law & Crime.
Officers who responded found Sanchez in an employee-only freezer in the store’s back area. According to police statements reported by Law & Crime, there were no signs that Sanchez had been physically forced into the freezer. How she became trapped inside, and for how long she remained alive, have not been publicly clarified in the coverage to date.
The Negligence Allegations Against Dollar Tree
The family’s lawsuit argues that Dollar Tree failed in several overlapping ways. In legal terms, the company is accused of breaching what the complaint describes as a “nondelegable duty” to keep its premises reasonably safe for customers.
According to the filing, that duty included:
Item 1: Maintaining the store in a reasonably safe condition, including restricted areas.
Item 2: Protecting customers from foreseeable risks of harm.
Item 3: Securing and safely maintaining dangerous equipment, including walk-in freezers.
Item 4: Implementing and enforcing reasonable safety policies and closing procedures.
Item 5: Taking reasonable action to locate and assist customers after being told someone was missing.
The lawsuit states that Gonzalez, as manager, failed to implement and enforce closing-time procedures that would ensure all customers had left the store before doors were locked. It also claims the freezer should not have been accessible to customers at all and describes the equipment as faulty.
In one key allegation, the complaint says Dollar Tree was negligent by “failing to install, maintain, and/or implement adequate safety mechanisms within the walk-in freezer, including but not limited to an internal emergency release, latch, or alarm, to prevent entrapment.” In other words, the family argues that Sanchez could not get out on her own and had no effective way to signal for help.
Law & Crime reported that Dollar Tree management did not respond to requests for comment about the case. In the court filings described so far, the company had not yet filed its formal response to the allegations, so its legal position remains unknown in the public record cited.
What Police Say, and What They Do Not
The civil lawsuit proceeds in parallel with the Miami Police Department’s investigation, which remains characterized publicly as open but without suspected foul play. That phrasing leaves room for an accidental death or one tied to unsafe conditions, rather than intentional violence.
Police told Law & Crime that it did not appear Sanchez had been forced into the freezer. That statement cuts against any theory of an abduction at the store, but it does not answer whether staff actions or store conditions might have contributed to her death.
There is no publicly reported indication, in the coverage cited, that criminal charges have been filed against any Dollar Tree employee. The focus so far is on potential civil liability for wrongful death and premises negligence. Key investigative details, including the official cause and manner of death, have not been fully laid out in the reporting available through Law & Crime and CBS Miami.
Freezer Safety and Legal Standards
Walk-in freezers are common in restaurants and retail stores. Federal workplace safety rules emphasize that employees must be able to escape from inside such spaces. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration requires that exit routes be unobstructed and that people be able to open exit doors from the inside without keys or special tools. Those rules are spelled out in OSHA standard 29 CFR 1910.36.
The family’s lawsuit suggests that similar safety expectations should apply to customers who can reach restricted areas inside a store. It argues that Dollar Tree had a duty not just to protect its own workers, but also to keep invitees like Sanchez away from hazardous equipment or to ensure that anyone who entered a freezer could release themselves.
Whether that argument holds in court will likely depend on detailed evidence about the freezer’s design, maintenance records, the store’s written policies, and what staff actually did that night. As of the latest reporting by Law & Crime, those specifics had not yet been tested in front of a judge or jury.
A Family’s Loss, and Open Questions
Beyond the filings and police statements, friends and family have been left to describe the person behind the case caption. A GoFundMe campaign for Sanchez’s relatives, cited by Law & Crime and hosted on GoFundMe, calls her a “devoted” doctor and “beloved” mother who “dedicated her life to medicine, earning recognition as a Anesthesiologist specializing in congenital heart disease whose work brought hope and healing to countless children and families.”
The fundraiser adds, “Her compassion, skill, and commitment to saving young lives defined both her career and her character.” It notes that her two children remain in Nicaragua, where, according to the organizers, they must now grow up without their mother.
For the moment, the public record offers only fragments. A security video that was allegedly never checked on the night Sanchez disappeared. A restricted freezer that staff say customers should not access. A police statement that rules out obvious foul play but leaves the circumstances of entrapment largely unexplained.
As the lawsuit moves forward and the Miami Police Department completes its investigation, two basic questions remain unresolved in the materials available so far. How exactly did a trained physician and paying customer come to be locked inside an employee-only freezer, and what, if anything, could Dollar Tree workers realistically have done that night to change the outcome.
