'He was cold as ice': Parents want to know what causes SUDC

It was during a rushed but otherwise typical Tuesday morning when Jeff Frank of North Aurora, Ill., went to wake his 16-month-old son, Emmett, and noticed him in an unusual sleeping position: a yoga child's pose. When he turned him over, Emmett was already gone.

Joe and Nicole Wesolowski, of Naperville, Ill., were getting their older daughter ready for bed when they decided to check on 15-month-old son Ryan, who had been asleep in his crib since earlier that evening. He had stopped breathing.

And when Raquel Torres, of Glenview, Ill., tried to wake her 2-year-old son Julian for the day, she couldn't. "He was cold as ice."

All of their children were dead, some for hours. And still years later, no one can tell them why.

Sudden unidentified death in childhood, or SUDC, is defined as the death of a child age 1 to 18 - though most are toddlers - without a known cause, even after an autopsy and investigation by doctors, and sometimes police and child-welfare officials. These children are older than the 12-month age cutoff for sudden infant death, typically referred to as SIDS, and have outgrown the