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The Utah dance mom and her 11-year-old daughter found dead in a shocking murder-suicide were extremely tight-knit and “wanted nothing more” than to be together, stricken kin told The Post.
Tawnia McGeehan, 34, and dance-competition kid Addilyn Smith — whose bodies were discovered in a Las Vegas hotel room in February, with grisly new details about the horror only recently coming to light — were “always doing fun things,” said McGeehan’s heartbroken mother and Addilyn’s grandma, Connie McGeehan, on Thursday.
“Whether it be the amusement park, swimming, movies, the arcade, the mall and so much more” — they were always together, the older woman said.
“Addi wanted nothing more than to spend time with her mommy. Tawnia loved that little girl with everything she had,and Addi felt the same way about her mommy,” said Connie, who lives in Salt Lake City.
The grieving grandma painted her daughter as a loving and devoted mother — despite newly released autopsy reports that show Tawnia gave Addilyn a cocktail of prescription medications and other drugs, then fatally shot the youngster and herself in the head in a room at the Rio Hotel and Casino, where they were staying during a cheerleading competition.
“I want more than anything for people to know how big of a heart my daughter had,” Connie said. “She would do anything for anyone. She was truly the best mom I have ever seen.”
Authorities have said Tawnia – who had been embroiled in a bitter custody dispute with her ex-husband, Brad Smith, for roughly nine years – apparently committed the unthinkable acts because she was “severely depressed over breakups and on-going custody battle with her ex-husband.”
Her mother said she’s been living a nightmare since the deaths and also recalled tender moments spent with her beloved granddaughter, whom she said “loved her friends and cheer.
“Myself and Addi’s grandpa loved taking her on little adventures. We would go on hikes. We had a yearly tradition of going to the lake and catching crawfish. She loved that so much,” the grandma said.
“I would go for walks with Addi to get treats, and we would play fun games on the way. She would always tell me, ‘Grandma, look at the sky.’ She loved looking at the cotton-candy clouds,” the heartbroken family member continued.
For the McGeehan family, every day has been a struggle since police found the mother and daughter dead from gunshot wounds to the head and surrounded by prescription pill bottles after they failed to show up for the young girl’s cheerleading competition in Sin City on Feb. 15.
“I cannot even begin to describe the huge hole this had left in our lives,” Connie McGeehan said – adding that it felt “like going back to day one” of the nightmare when the Clark County Coroner’s Office released its autopsy reports this week.
Cops found the mother’s and daughter’s lifeless bodies laid side-by-side on a bed after receiving multiple calls for a welfare check.
The youngster’s face was covered by a pillow that had a bullet hole through it, and a semi-automatic pistol was laid on top of the mother’s chest, according to the reports obtained by The Post.
The mother left a series of disturbed handwritten confession letters inside the room – including one taped to a chair near the entrance that read: “Call 911 before walking in. Two dead bodies and one is an 11-year-old.”
Another note stated that Smith had been “very medicated” leading up to her death and that “she slept cuddled with” her mother.
Substances including quetiapine, an antipsychotic medication; gabapentin, an anticonvulsant drug used to treat seizure disorders; the anxiety drug lorazepam and the antihistamine diphenhydramine were all present in the pre-teen’s system when she died.
Tawnia McGeehan’s toxicology report listed the same drugs, as well as eszopiclone or zopiclone, a prescription sedative; the antidepressant drug known as citalopram or escitalopram; desmethyl loperamide, a chemical breakdown caused by the anti-diarrhea medication loperamide and cannabinoids.
Her family also told investigators that she had “a history of severe depression” and “past suicidal ideations,” the papers noted.
A rare recently resurfaced video offered a glimpse into the mother-daughter duo’s relationship during happier times.
In the clip, Smith is wearing a rainbow cheetah-print shirt and a blue bow in her hair and seen grinning and giggling alongside her mother while the pair exchange items they believe are one another’s “favorites” in different categories.
“Your favorite drink, I got you chocolate milk,” Tawnia McGeehan says, to which the youngster adorably responds, “Yummy!”
The child then says, “I couldn’t find Dr. Pepper, so I got you this,” while pulling an unidentifiable drink from a bag sitting next to her.
“Ooo, my favorite,” the mother responds.
Connie McGeehan, who has frequently put tributes on TikTok in memory of her slain relatives, recently reposted a video from June 2021 along with the heart-wrenching caption: “This is where I go when I need to her [sic] my daughter and granddaughters voices.”
English (US)