Colette S. Cote -- December 25, 1996 - June 5, 2005 -- DANIELSON - Colette S. Cote, 8, of Short St., died on Sunday. She was the daughter of Felix C. Cote of Danielson and Jean Michaud of Danielson. Colette was born in Windham on December 25, 1996. She attended Killingly Memorial School. She was an active child and enjoyed reading, art, the outdoors and swimming. She was a loving little girl, who opened herself up to everybody. She had numerous friends and will be dearly missed by her family and friends. Besides her parents, she leaves a paternal grandmother, Mary Cote of Windham, CT; a maternal grandmother, Pauline Michaud of Rocky Hill, CT; two brothers, Christopher Cote of N. Windham and Anthony Shibenski of Danielson; three sisters, Amanda Mayo and her husband, Dennis of Elmira, N.Y., Nicole Shibenski and Emily Cote, both of Danielson; a niece; and several aunts, uncles cousins, and many, many friends. She was predeceased by a paternal grandfather, Real Cote; and a maternal grandfather, Richard Michaud. There will be a Funeral Service on Friday at 10:00 A.M. at the GagnonCostello Funeral Home, 33 Reynolds St., Danielson. Burial following at Holy Cross Cemetery, Danielson. Calling hours are Thursday 79 P.M. and on Friday at 910 A.M. prior to the Funeral Service. Donations may be made to the Colette Cote Memorial Fund, P.O. Box 764, Dayville, CT 06241. --- CANTERBURY-- Eight-year-old Collette Cote drowned Sunday morning while swimming at a friend's house despite desperate efforts by her friend's family members and local rescuers.Cote, a third-grader at Killingly Memorial School in Danielson, went under the water in a murky pond behind the house at 189 Butts Bridge Road at about 10:13 a.m. Patty Redo, the property owner, said she saw her own daughter start going under water and jumped into the pond to save the girls. She was able to pull her 5-year-old daughter out but couldn't find Cote in the soft mud on the pond's bottom."I saw my daughter's head bobbing up and down and apparently Collette was trying to hold on to her legs," Redo said. "It was so murky I couldn't find her."Canterbury volunteer firefighters, state police officers and the Quinebaug Valley Dive Team searched the pond for 30 minutes before finding Cote's body. They said the pond's murkiness, which officials described as almost black water, hampered the search in the 10-foot-deep water.Rescuers were not able to resuscitate Cote and she was pronounced dead after being airlifted to Hartford Hospital."She was my little peanut, my little angel," her mother, Jean Michaud, said through tears. "She was the sweetest little angel. So loving and caring."Redo said two of her daughters and Collette and Emily Cote were all in the pond. She said she had been watching the girls and said Cote wasn't using or wearing a flotation device.Michaud said she was still trying to explain to 4-year-old Emily that her sister wasn't coming home."She thinks she's at the doctor," Michaud said. "I told her Collette's body was at the doctor's, but her soul is with her grandfather."Michaud said she knew Redo through a friend. Collette and Emily were at the Redo house for a sleepover.Cote's uncles described Collette as a happy little girl who called all of them her favorite."She was a beautiful, innocent little girl who didn't deserve to die at such a young age," her uncle, Gary Cote, said.Bob Cote, another uncle, said Collette's father, Felix Cote, was beyond consolation."We're here to support him. There's not much we can do," Bob Cote said. "I'm trying to stay sane."Many neighbors on Butts Bridge Road don't know the Redo family because they only recently moved to the neighborhood.But Nicole Tattersall, who lives across the street, said she always saw children playing in her neighbor's yard. She has a 9-year-old daughter of her own and was visibly shaken when she heard that Cote didn't survive.She watched part of the search after one rescuer knocked on her door to ask if she had a diving mask of any kind."I told them I didn't -- I don't even know how to swim," Tattersall said. "They were throwing everybody in there (to look). It was huge."Kathleen Valentine, a neighbor down the street, walked over to the scene after seeing the line of emergency vehicles drive by and hearing the Life Star helicopter land."By the time I got there, they'd already gotten her out," Valentine said. "They were working on her and I didn't know if she was alive or not."Ray Shinkiewicz, who lives nearby, was surprised people would be swimming in the ponds on the Redo land. He remembers the previous owners digging the ponds for their animals -- ducks, donkeys and others -- but didn't think they ever swam there."They're basically big bogs," he said. "The (former owners) used the ponds for watering and so forth. I didn't think they were for swimming."Back in Danielson, Zara Lane, a 15-year-old neighbor of Cote's, said she can't believe her friend is gone."She was a character," Lane said. "She had a future ahead of her and just died."Lane said Cote loved to play on the monkey bars in the yard next to their apartment building and she won't let anyone touch them because they still have her friend's fingerprints on them.