The family of a Northern Virginia girl who died mysteriously in Southeast Baltimore eight years ago has not given up their pursuit for answers, this time getting the attention of a U.S. senator who has written to authorities on their behalf.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent letters last week to the Baltimore Police Department and the FBI asking questions about the investigation into the death of Annie McCann, who was 16 when she was found near Perkins Homes in 2008.

An autopsy determined she died from ingesting a 5-ounce bottle of Bactine, which contains the numbing agent lidocaine and is used as a disinfectant. She also left a letter that police concluded was a suicide note.

But her parents, agonized by questions, hired private investigators and forensic experts, whose findings have led them to believe police wrote off potential leads and have lied or misstated facts. They say there are no known cases of someone's dying from ingesting Bactine, and the manufacturer told them the amount ingested would not be expected to cause death.

Last fall, the manager of the funeral home that embalmed Annie's body told the family that she believed the girl had been beaten and sodomized, based on observations her staff made. Her family says photos from her autopsy appear to bolster the theory.

Grassley's letter, among other things, asks that police release lab results from a rape kit performed on Annie. His office makes inquiries about individual cases from time to time, saying a look at specific cases could provide insight into the broader practices of an agency.

“The committee is seeking to understand more fully the facts and circumstances surrounding BPD's interactions with the FBI and BPD's decision to treat the case as a suicide,” Grassley's letter says.

Annie's father, Dan McCann, said his family remains in an “ungodly limbo.”

“Annie's death just hasn't been investigated seriously,” he said in an interview. “I just want to find out what happened to my daughter.”

The Baltimore Police Department said Monday that officials would respond to the letter but that nothing has emerged to change detectives' view of the case. “There's no evidence that this was a murder, and there's also no evidence that there was any type of sexual assault,” police spokesman T.J. Smith said.

Annie had written about suicide in three notes, but they were found with large X's drawn over the words and tossed under her bed at the family's Fairfax, Va., home. The one she meant to be read was left lying on her bedsheets on Oct. 31, 2008.

“This morning I was going to kill myself,” the note reads. “But I realized I can start over instead. I don't want help and I'm no longer scared. If you really love me you'll let me go. ... Please don't go looking for me.”

Her parents believe it was not a suicide note, but an indication that she had changed her mind and decided to run away. She fled in her white Volvo with $1,000 she had saved, along with a trunkful of clothes, nearly all her jewelry and a box of Cheerios.

After employing private investigators, the family tracked down a clerk who says she saw Annie with an older woman at a store in Little Italy, near where she was found.

There's also the matter of the teenagers who told police they moved her body out of the back seat of her car, discarding it behind a Perkins Homes trash bin so they could take the car for a joy ride. They were charged as juveniles with car theft. One of those teens would be charged a few years later with fatally shooting a woman and stealing her car.

Police have said that they can't explain why Annie would have ingested Bactine but see nothing else that points to her death. They said her DNA, and only her DNA, was found on the bottle.

The cause of death is listed as undetermined, a common designation the state medical examiner's office uses in overdose deaths when the manner of death can't be conclusively determined.

In 2013, the FBI agreed to look at the case and had its Behavioral Analysis Unit review the case, which affirmed city police findings.

In a biting essay posted online, the family says authorities have continuously reaffirmed conclusions without critically looking into their questions, “one of them hiding behind another, their feckless actions were ripped right out of the playbook of the Pontius Pilate School of Leadership.”

The McCanns have wondered whether Annie was lured into human trafficking, and the questions raised about a possible sexual assault have further raised the question in their mind. Diana Downey of the Demaine Funeral Home in Fairfax, Va., said in an interview Monday that Annie's death was “no natural death.”

“Everywhere I've stepped has been quicksand,” Dan McCann said about his hopes for the case following Grassley's intervention. “What I'd like is a vigorous investigation into the circumstances of my daughter's death. I fear it's going to be difficult.”

jfenton@baltsun.com