Georgia girl, 12, killed by father after family court grants him custody

A Tennessee grandmother who fought for custody of her late daughter’s youngster however misplaced out to the woman’s father was left grieving and offended after the person murdered her granddaughter.

Monica Dunning is holding up the taking pictures dying of her 12-year-old granddaughter, Angel Ahearn, as devastating proof that the US household court docket system is damaged, the Tennessee information outlet WBIR reported.

Angel’s mom died in a automobile crash in Monroe county, Tennessee, in 2016. Dunning subsequently pushed to be named her granddaughter’s guardian. However the woman frolicked in a number of foster properties earlier than her father, Leonard Ahearn, gained custody of her.

In line with Dunning, her daughter was divorced from Ahearn on the time of her dying, and there had been allegations of abuse which led to a court docket order that prevented him from seeing Angel.

The choice to award Ahearn custody regardless of these allegations produced a tragic consequence on the household dwelling in Barrow county, Georgia, greater than a three-hour drive from Monroe county, Tennessee.

On 17 October, authorities say, Ahearn was arguing with a 34-year-old girl when he grabbed a pistol and shot her, his daughter and himself. First responders arrived to seek out Angel useless and the 2 adults badly wounded. Ahearn died after he and the girl had been taken to hospital.

“She watched her father stroll as much as her and put a gun to her head and shoot her,” Dunning informed WBIR in an interview this week. “That’s simply horrifying. No 12-year-old, particularly that 12-year-old, ought to undergo that.

“There was no means that you possibly can be in a room together with her, even two seconds, and never simply completely love her. She was outgoing, she was expressive, she was glad.”

Dunning mentioned she was significantly annoyed as a result of she invested money and time present process a course of geared toward authorizing her to take care of Angel, in a house the place Angel would have been secure. However she mentioned it appeared as if officers in command of her case “would place [Angel] with anyone” however her maternal grandmother.

The kids’s providers division of Tennessee informed WBIR that courts have the ultimate phrase on the place any youngster is positioned to reside. WBIR reported that the decide who dominated on Angel’s case, Benjy Thomas, declined to remark.

Tennessee state home consultant Gloria Johnson mentioned Angel’s dying illustrated simply one of many issues plaguing an understaffed, underpaid youngsters’s providers division and the courts with which it really works.

Programs throughout the US face related points. Johnson informed WBIR she was calling on Tennessee’s governor, Invoice Lee, to correctly fund state youngsters’s providers earlier than every other youngsters had been damage.

“It’s simply morally fallacious,” Johnson mentioned to WBIR. “I believe it’s time to seek out the cash to deal with the state of affairs now.”