Mom Drugged 11-Year-Old Cheerleader Before Killing Her: Report

We are following new information in the case of the mom who killed her own 11-year-old daughter inside of Vegas hotel room during a cheerleading competition. You think the child possibly is an imminent danger? That's part of the 911 call that the girl's dad made that led police to the hotel where Adi Smith was staying with her mom. The corner just unveiled their findings in this case, what we know about what they believe led up to this murder and what we know about why a mom would do the unthinkable. We're on the case presented by law and crime. I'm Chris Stewart. I won't warn you. This story is not easy to talk about. Adi Smith was a bright light to everyone who knew her. This 11-year-old girl, that's how people are remembering her. And she was someone who had such a passion for cheerleading and for others. And her life was cut short, tragically by her own mom inside a Las Vegas hotel room in February of this year. And it's hard to talk about for obvious reasons, but you just think of the horror that this young girl had to endure on a weekend that was supposed to be so much fun. That was supposed to be about her, about celebrating what she was passionate about, celebrating a girl who family say had a spirit that seemed to shine as brightly as her smile. The corner for Clark County and Nevada just released their findings on this case. And there are several new pieces of information that we have for you today that sheds light on what may have led up to what happened inside this hotel room around February 15th, and also I'll share with you the findings of a toxicology report. I want to tell you what it found in the bodies of not just Tanya McKeegan, who is Adi's mom, but also Adi on the night that she died. Now we'll get to all of that here in just a moment, but it has been several months since the story began. So I want to go back to February with how it started. I talked to her yesterday and my daughter and everything's fine. That is audio obtained by KUTV in Utah. And it's the 911 call that Adi's dad made to police in Las Vegas on the morning of Sunday February 15th. She had gone from Utah to Vegas for this cheerleading competition with her mom. And when you look at her mom's Facebook, you can see she was really proud of her daughter that cheerleading was her daughter's passion because those are several pictures on her Facebook banner. Now Adi's parents for as much as they loved Adi, they were in the middle of a brutal custody dispute. The two parents divorced in 2015 and they had been fighting for custody of Adi since she was just two years old. And we'll talk a little bit more about the custody issues in just a moment. To sure you have enough of the words, there's no answer or response or anything like that. It doesn't look like they checked out or anything. So that's the call that came in from Adi's stepmom. She made a separate call. And then there's a third call that we have. And this one's from Adi's coach. We think that child possibly is an imminent danger. So those who knew Adi may be feared the worst quicker than in other situations because of who she was traveling with for this cheerleading competition. Tony McKeegan. Again, she had divorced Adi's dad in 2015 and the two of them had been fighting for custody since she was a toddler. And there are hundreds and hundreds of docket entries related to this couple's divorce. Most of the filings are under seal, but this is the latest decree from a Utah judge. And it has details of the custody arrangement that they had and it really sheds light on just how bitter all of this was because the documents indicate that Adi's dad was awarded sole custody of her in 2020. A judge found back then in October that the petitioner, which was Tony McKeegan the mom, quote, is subjecting the child to behavior that is on the spectrum of parental alienation. It also states petitioner has committed domestic abuse in the presence of the minor child. Now as part of that ruling in 2020, Tony McKeegan, Adi's mom had to be supervised by court designated family members when she spent time with her daughter. Later, a judge found that Tony's behavior had improved and the judge modified the custody agreement and made it 50 50 one week on one week off. I want to read you here the details of how these parents would exchange custody of young Adi according to the filing exchanges are to take place at a S's school when in session that during times in which school is not in session exchange will take place at a local police department in Utah. The parties are to park five parking stalls away from one another and Adi will walk herself to the receiving parents car neither party is to videotape the child's exchanges according to the judges ruling each parent was entitled to two weeks of uninterrupted time with Adi during the summer when she was out of school. And there were also some pretty strict rules on how Adi would communicate with one parent if she was staying with the other for example during the regular parent time each party will make Adi available for face time with the other parent on Tuesday nights at 6 p.m. And Friday nights at 6 p.m. If either parent fails to initiate the call by 6 p.m. They shall forfeit the face time call for that day. All communication between Adi's parents had to be via an app that is specifically used in custody situations. Now at school events or other gatherings the parents were forbidden from approaching one another but it was required that Adi be allowed to speak with whomever didn't have custody of her at the time. Both parents were also responsible for splitting the cost of any extra curricular activities like cheerleading and dance. Now on the weekend of this tragedy so we'll go back to February. Tanya checked into the Rio Hotel in Vegas with Adi on Saturday and the pair was last seen around 8 p.m. Saturday night and then Sunday is when the concern started that no one could get in touch with them and Adi's dad called 911. The details of the call are at approximately 10.45 this morning, LVMPD dispatch received a call for service for a check the welfare of a mother and her daughter. Officers arrived, met up with security went up to the room and attempted to contact a mother and daughter in their room. They knocked several times and they called into the room without any answer. At that point of time without anything else and no other information and nothing else suspicious, those officers have eyed security and they cleared from the call. Security continued to get information from family and friends asking them to attempt to locate the mother and daughter inside the casino. At approximately 2.30 in the afternoon security went back up to the room to attempt to locate the mother and child again. They knocked several times and they also called into the room without success. At that point of time security decided to make entry into the room where when they entered the room they located two deceased females. They immediately backed up and called 911. Patrol arrived and secured the scene. Homicide detectives have been notified and were currently on scene investigating the crime. It appears the preliminary details that we know so far are it appears that the mother and daughter came here for in down for a dance competition or a cheer competition. Sometime last night the mother shot her daughter and then shot herself. So here's the new information we now have that we just learned from the corner in Nevada the report confirms what law enforcement had suspected all the way back in February. That Tonya did take Adi's life and then took her own but a toxicology test found that Tonya appeared to have drugged her daughter before the gunshots were fired. This is according to the report that was obtained by KSL television and Salt Lake. The report says that Adi was quote very medicated at the time of the violence. Adi's mom had drugs used to treat depression and insomnia in her system along with cannabinoids which could mean she had THC in her system now asked for 11 year old Adi. She had lorazapam in her system that is used for sedation and that drug was also found in Tonya's body as well. Authorities say there were at least three handwritten notes on scene one was found inside the main entry to the room and warned of dead bodies inside and the other said that Adi was quote very medicated. Now it is still unclear what drove Tonya to commit such terrible violence on that day. But the report does mention that her custody battle and previous mental health issues potentially played a role because those were things that she was going through it says she was quote severely depressed. Another part says quote the descendants family reported a history of severe depression with previous prescribed depression medication they were aware of past suicidal ideations but denied knowledge of past attempts. It also says that Tonya's mom was unaware that her daughter had a gun. Adi's death is now officially considered a homicide and Tonya's a suicide. Now Adi's oh but goes on to say that Adi never wanted or needed much in life. She was always happy she had a spirit that sparkled as brightly as her smile wherever she went she brought energy laughter and love. for passion for cheerleading, filled her days with excitement. purpose. Now, before I get to family law attorney Randy Kessler, he's going to come on. We're going to talk a little bit more about this case. I want to make sure you see this. It's important. If you or anyone you know are in crisis, people are here to hear you and talk to you. You can call our tax 988. That is the suicide and crisis lifeline. It is staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Joyce now to talk about this situation, just an awful story, family law attorney Randy Kessler. It's always great to have you on here, Randy. We were going over the details that we understand of what the custody arrangement looked like and it was contentious at best. This was a tough situation for an 11-year-old girl to be in and we're not even talking about sadly the tragedy that took her life. But just what stands out to you about it just seems like every single step along the way. You know, it was just an arrangement that that just had just, you know, confrontation. I feel like built into it. Yes, so this is the worst kind of tension we see in our practice, right? They're two competing dynamics that are both really important, right? Safety of children, messages of the children, and the ability for children to know their parents. Obviously, safety of the children comes first. But it's not safety of the children versus a cruel school teacher or a bully at the school yard. That's easy. The child doesn't go to that school anymore, that bully gets kicked out of school. You can't kick a mom out of a child's life unless you meet really extreme burdens of proof like beyond a reasonable doubt, almost like in the criminal case. It's clear and convincing evidence to, you know, determinate parents' rights. You have these two extremely opposite dynamics. Children should know their parents. Children should have an opportunity to get to know their parents. Children should be safe. How do you reconcile those? Especially when there has been no history. Mom didn't ever try to kill the child before. There's no evidence that mom was a murderer or could get to that level. And of course, the mental health aspect that we've all seen so much in the news lately with the Clancy case, just a horrible situation. You'd hate to be the judge in that case. You'd hate to be the lawyer in that case. And most importantly, of course, you'd hate to be family in that situation. Just, I don't know how you prevent something like this, Chris, because parents will always have a right to see their children. And we want to give them that right, not at all cost, but you know, we're willing to take some risk to let a parent know their child. If mom's a little crazy, everyone's a little crazy. You don't get to see your kids because you're a little bit off you. Where do we draw that line? It's just such a hard, hard, hard situation. And that seems like such a big, you know, I mean, there's so many cases to your point, you know, that mental health plays a role. But it's like at what point does it cross the line where you're talking about a dangerous situation? And like you look at the history of this custody battle that had been going on. And it's to our understanding in 2020, the dad was given sole custody. The mom had dealt with, you know, mental health issues, you know, in a lot of different ways. I guess, you know, she had, you know, their suicidal ideations is the term that was used, but it was never even like an attempt. Her somewhere along the line, her, I guess, behavior improved to the point where a judge said that we can do one week with the mom, one week with the dad. I mean, how often in these custody arrangements, you know, in a case where someone says awarded sole custody, do you revisit and say, well, you know, my client or in the case, maybe it's the other parent, you know, if they're not the same person that they were in 2021, we made this decision. And now we can make an arrangement so they can be more in their child's life. It's very common, right? There are reunification plans. You will be supervised until you've done 12 months of this. You will use a device called sober link and monitor you for alcohol use for at least a year. And if you do it successfully for a year, then that goes away or you will use that device until you come back to court and ask me as the judge to relieve you of that burden. So people come back all the time, you know, as a lawyer, what's interesting to me from a legal point of view is that family law sort of ignores a basic tenant of law, which is rest due to counter, you know, most legal situations, you go to court, you get a result, you don't get to go back and revisit it. Oh, that car wreck case, I only got $10,000. I want to change the result. For that murder conviction, oh, I want to try it again. But in family law, kids grow up, people change, and you have to figure out what's good for the child currently. You know, 20 years ago or 10 years ago, my client might have been a horrible person, but now that they've reformed, shouldn't the child have right to get to know my client, should my client have a right. And judges are open to that because the law of rest due to counter does not really apply in child custody and in child support cases because if someone all of a sudden hits a big, they should pay more support or if they go downhill, maybe they should have a break. So, yes, sensory question, you do go back and you do see go back and usually it's for the good. You know, people that have the time, energy, money to commit to going back to court, they got a good case or they wouldn't be hiring me and spending money to try to get more time with a child if they didn't have good basis for it. So, it is very common to judge and see people and usually judges are happy to see people that have done the right thing, gotten better, gotten on medication, become more stable and now able to be more involved in the children's lives. So, it's usually a better result than this. Because you look at some of the arrangements, so I'm just pulling it up here. You know, during the regular parent time, each party will make the girl Addie available for FaceTime with the other parent on Tuesday nights at 6 p.m. If either parent fails to initiate the call by 615 p.m., they shall forfeit the FaceTime call for that day. During the regular parent time, each party will make their excuse that I was the FaceTime part. Let me just bring up. You know, exchanges will take place at Addie's school one in session and then during that's during the school year and then, you know, they'll take place at the Haramon Police Department when it's not at school. The parties are to park five parking stalls away from one another and Addie will walk herself to the receiving parents car and neither party is to videotape the child's exchanges. I mean, these are very, very specific details about how that's relationship is going to go. How do you even negotiate those things? It's tough because you're trying to figure out what's best for the child while letting the child have a relationship and it's a fluctuating line. It's not a straight up or straight down. It's a mom has been supervised. Okay, mom has not done anything wrong. And you know, when they sang, by the way, with supervision, and I don't mind when my clients are supervised, because then you have a built in neutral witness. You know, Mr. Kelser's Client should be supervised. Fine. Put in a neutral supervisor. So six months down the road, when I go to court, I don't say, Judge, trust my client. She says it's been good when she's been with the child. There's this supervisor there. And the supervisor reports your honor. Mr. Kelser's Client has been a very appropriate pair for six months. I've not seen one anything of any kind of confusion or frustration or inconsistency. And the judge feels better about relieving everyone of the supervision. So, you know, custody plans, custody arrangements. If you can think of a plan for custody arrangement, it's been tried, Chris. I mean, there's so many different ones. There's talked to someone this morning about nesting. They're going to one parent's going to live in the house with a children for a week. Then they go to the apartment. The other parent leaves the apartment and comes to spend the week with the children. You know, anything that can work for that family to keep a relationship with the children while keeping the children safe. And that's, you know, and judges aren't gods. They're not, you know, miracle workers. They do their best. They try to come up with a situation. They got a hundred cases waiting in the wings and they're trying to come up with something. It sounds like they had a plan. And there's no reason to expect something this dramatic and this horrible. From what I can tell, I don't blame the judge or the lawyers. It just, it shouldn't have happened. Mom, whatever happened, her mental illness took hold. She went off the deep end, so to speak, to be a layperson about it and horrible. But I don't know how you could have predicted this. And at the same time, make sure the child got to know her mom. And that's, I mean, they were going to a cheerleading competition in Las Vegas, you know, and it's just, you know, it seemed like, you know, how many parents do that? You know, and even the father, who she had, you know, a very toxic relationship with, you know, and he, I'm sure he did everything he could for his daughter. Like, I'm the 9-1-1 call. He says he spoke to them earlier today and it didn't seem like anything, even in the world that they were living in, that anything seemed off from what it typically was. Sadly, we see a lot of cases. I mean, we've talked about them where situations like this happen. Like, how often in these cases, though, like, is the, the awareness that mental health or just the stress of the situation could lead to harming the child? Like, has there been, so I feel like we talk about these cases a lot, and I don't know if it's happening more or less, but like, do you see like a conversation in these cases about the possibility that something like this could happen? I do, but you know, I'm a lawyer and I see both sides. I also see the potential for abuse of these arguments. I see the potential for a parent who hates the other parent because they cheat it on them or they hurt them or they do something. And I see parents all the time say, I don't want him to ever see this child again. And they say, I'm concerned for the child's safety. How do you parse out when it's real concern for the safety? And it's not just anger at the other parent for ending the relationship and abandoning them and leaving them and rejecting them. And we see it all the time where people say, I don't want her to ever be around my daughter or my son. right on her and her new boyfriend to be around and you know, and it's like the boy who cried wolf. You know, a lot of people cry wolf, but had it figure out when someone's crying wolf and when it's a real wolf. And that's, it's a horrible, horrible situation for a judge to be in. And if you err on the side of caution, and you don't let the other parents see the child, maybe save the child and that, maybe that's where we should end up, but where's the balance? You know, at what point do you say, I'm gonna err on the side of caution and not let the parent even see the child be alone with the child versus I can see through this and there's no real concern there and this mom's been doing everything right. And like you said, you've read the, the, the terms, you know, they had some safeguards in place and they had some protocols and to avoid conflict, the child wasn't gonna be exchanged at the house. It was in a public area at the police station or at school. So any sort of action and, and you know, you cover these stories, you know, the crime of passion. It happens with someone's angry. They see their ex and I'm not gonna give them, give my daughter to you. I'm gonna do something right now. This wasn't in one of those exchanges. This was something that had he prevented. And even with a supervisor, if you're gonna do something this terrible, you're gonna tell me you can't murder somebody just because there's a supervisor there. I mean, the extreme would be, she never got to see her child. The child never got to know her mom because there was some concern that wasn't based on a past history of being violent towards a child. I just, I don't know the answer. I wish I did. - No, and that's the hard part. I mean, with any, you know, so many of these crimes, I mean, we always look for answers of like, how could this have been stopped? Like what could have been done? And it's like a mom going to a cheerleading competition. And it's like even on the mental health part of it, like in mental health and whatever, I don't know if she had a particular diagnosis, but like people live with mental health diagnoses every single day and you never hear about them because they live, they handle it and they live like very normal lives. And I believe it's a minority that you see like these types of cases happen, but like at the same time, like when you have a client and, you know, say for the example, the father in this case, and you know, the mom, Tanya, you know, has this mental health history. Like what do you have to show a judge if there is a situation where it appears her mental health is getting out of hand where you can make an argument that the custody agreement, I'm just using this as an example. I'm seeking more in general terms like what evidence do you need to have when you bring it to a judge that there needs to be a change to the custody agreement because there is a particular mental health issue. And it be something that is set in stone that can't be a cry wolf situation because someone was just having a bad day. - It's very difficult and it can be costly. You know, we all see, you know, we watch law and crime court TV and we see, you know, psychologists come in and testify. Psychologists are expensive to get a psychologist to come into court to say, "Your honor, I can tell that that woman has these mental issues." Plus, how can a psychologist say that if he hasn't met her or she hasn't met her? So you have to ask the court to order a custody evaluation, which we can do. But again, they're expensive. If it's done, you know, through the state or through some free service, then it's gonna be a backlog of eight months or 10 months. It's very hard, plus, you know, and I don't know about you or the rest of the world. I think people are generally good. And when I walk into court and say, "Your honor, just look at her." They're just gonna look at her and say, she's the mom, she's innocent. Why are you attacking her? Because you don't see mental illness, you know, very rarely can you just look at somebody and say, "There's something off of that person." And so you want to presume that that person who you're trying to keep from her child is now the victim of my client's attack and my client's challenge. So she gets the benefit of the doubt, right? She wants in the court, she's done nothing wrong. It's a hard burden. It takes a psychologist, it takes psychological testimony. It takes some, we have guardians or child advocates that can hopefully, you know, dig deep and surprise mom on a visit and show up and see how moms are acting. But I would think even in this case, I don't know how you would have predicted this. I don't know how a psychologist would have predicted this because there wasn't a history. Crimes are different. You know, we hear these horror stories of someone gets raped and it turns out the guy's been released 14 times on misdemeanor charges. Maybe we should have seen that. This is different. These are just two parents going through civil proceedings, fighting for time with their child. That, you know, that doesn't mean they're going to be violent because they've been in court so much. They haven't been arrested. They haven't been found guilty. But to answer your question shortly, I'm sorry, it took so long. If you can get a psychologist who's good and persuasive, who can do an evaluation and psychologists are perfect, they're going to hedge too. They don't know what's going to happen. So there's no course in psychology school about parenting diagnoses, you know, they're trying to figure it out from all their other weaponry and their other ammunition of, you know, testing personality disorders and psychosis. It's almost an impossible task. No, and it's, you know, no one can predict the future, you know, even in cases where you can say, oh, there were red flags, you know, often that's in hindsight. And in this case, it's just horrific, you know, and certainly new details about what happened inside that hotel room. It's just, it's a tough story to stomach. Unfortunately, you know, we have to talk about these cases and custody issues often come up and Randy Kessler, family law attorney. It's always great to have you on law and crime to help us kind of understand how situations go when it comes to custody. It's not easy. Thanks for having me, Chris. That will do it for on the case presented by law and crime. I'm Chris Stewart. We'll see you next time. (upbeat music)