Authorities found a 16-year-old dead weighing only 40 pounds. Relatives point to the mother and claim that the mother hated, abused, and starved her daughter. Click below to read more.
A 16-year-old girl weighed just 40 pounds when police say she starved to death at the hands of a mother who “hated her.”
Authorities found Markea Blakely-Berry dead on Friday in her Atlanta-area home. Her 38-year-old mom, Ebony Berry, had called authorities after first reaching out to her dad when she found teen and couldn’t revive her.
“I got her off the phone,” Larry Stewart told WOOD-TV. “I said, ‘You dial 911. Don’t call me. Call me back and let me know what’s going on with the child.”
Markea, who was born with mental disabilities, was dead when police arrived. Berry was arrested and is being held without bond at Cobb County Jail, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
She faces charges of murder and first-degree cruelty to children.
Relatives told WOOD-TV the history of abuse began when the girl and her mother lived in Grand Rapids, Mich.
“Her mother hated her for some reason. We don’t know,” said Cheryl Gore, Markea’s paternal grandmother.
Gore says Berry had been starving Markea for years. She last saw her granddaughter in 2008, when Berry moved with her children to Georgia.
“She punished her daughter,” Gore told WOOD-TV. “She didn’t have to kill my grandbaby like that.”
Gore told the station that Markea used to mail her drawings, always with no return address. The last one she received was around Thanksgiving, showing a table full of food and people with empty plates.
“Ham hocks, potato salad, she put it all down there,” Gore said, but when it came to her, it was just a blank face. She didn’t get to eat.”
Markea’s father Mark Blakely, who did not live with Berry and his daughter, says child protective services (CPS) should have stepped in while the family lived in Grand Rapids.
Michigan CPS launched several investigations, but only one found substantiate abuse, WOOD-TV reports.
“She ran to do wrong,” Blakely says of Berry’s move to Georgia. “Nobody helped, nobody tried to stop her. The system knew that she wasn’t wrapped all the way tight.”
Family members say they found links to a group that encouraged hunger on Berry’s Facebook page. Police are investigating the claim.
“It’s like, mind-blowing to me,” Blakely told WOOD-TV. “I can’t even understand it. How could anybody do that to somebody? You wouldn’t even do your worst enemy that way.”
