Shona Garner-White, the mother of Alegend Jones, a 17-year-old girl who passed away while in the custody of a Tennessee group home, is seeking answers regarding the details of her daughter’s death.
Witnesses shared with the family and its representatives that male counselors beat the girl, a claim the facility vehemently denies.
Garner-White has hired civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump to get to the bottom of the “suspicious circumstances” surrounding what happened at the Youth Villages Group Home on the Bartlett, Tennessee, campus just outside of Memphis on Nov. 16. That day Jones was rushed to the hospital from the facility because of a “medical emergency” and died the next day from her mysterious injuries.
The Shelby County Medical Examiner has not released the results of Jones’ autopsy.
Crump said last week, he spoke to the doctors and was told that Jones probably died from a “brain bleed.”
Now, the family has retained a forensic pathologist to perform an independent autopsy. The goal, according to the lawyer, is to put “the puzzle together to get to the truth so we can get justice for this child — this 17-year-old child.”
Representatives from Youth Villages have not released details about what happened but confirmed that something occurred on one of its campuses on the day Jones was taken to the hospital.
“A young person in our care experienced a medical emergency. We do not know the cause of the medical emergency,” the nonprofit said in a statement.
Officials further stated they are following confidentiality laws about children receiving mental and behavioral health care and are unable to comment on specific cases, adding, “There were no abusive or otherwise inappropriate interactions directed toward the young person.”
Crump says that is not true.
“Alegend, a 17-year-old female, was told to remove her clothes while she was at the health department. She did not want to take off her…
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