Officials say a lot about child abuse prevention, little about Dominique Moody
At a kickoff event for Child Abuse Prevention Month in April, Mecklenburg County District Attorney Spencer Merriweather reminded every attendee of their responsibility, by North Carolina law, to act as mandated reporters.
“If you do see something or see someone who harms or neglects a child, you have a responsibility to this community, fortified by law, to speak up and report what you see to law enforcement,” Merriweather said at the event Tuesday at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Government Center.
But when later asked about Mecklenburg County’s denial of public records pertaining to the death of 6-year-old Dominique Moody in December, Merriweather declined to comment.
Under state law, certain county Department of Social Services records become public when a child dies. And in the past, including in 2017 following the death of A’dan Blackmon, the department has released those records.
Yet the county government has declined to release records about how investigators handled Dominique’s case before her death.
Two requests seeking those documents by The Charlotte Observer have received no response.
An Observer request submitted to the Mecklenburg County public information department on Dec. 30 asking for information about visits to Moody’s home on Gwynne Hill Road went unanswered. A second public records request on March 11, seeking the same documents, has also gone unanswered by county government leaders.
The county has denied a request by WBTV for records about how investigators handled the case. Mecklenburg County Attorney Tyrone Wade said the documents were denied because release would interfere with prosecuting criminal cases. His office is not involved in prosecuting murder cases.
“After consultation with the District Attorney, there is a concern that release of any findings and summary information, at this point, will likely jeopardize the state’s ability to prosecute the defendants and the defendants’ right to a fair trial, and will possibly undermine the ongoing criminal investigation,” Wade said in a statement to WBTV.
Dominique’s death Dec. 16 drew attention as details of the abuse she reportedly experienced became public. Dominique weighed 27 pounds at the time of her death and had burn scars, rib fractures and wounds from “prolonged sitting in urine/feces-soiled items, such as a diaper, for extensive periods of time,” a medical examiner’s report said.
She died at a hospital after her aunt and legal guardian, Tonya McKnight, called 911 saying Dominique wasn’t breathing. McKnight and two other women, Susan Robinson and Tery’n McKnight, were all charged with first-degree murder.
Attorney Ben Crump came to Charlotte in March to say he was going to investigate the death and the county’s failure to intervene.
“They miss these red flags, these flashing lights,” Crump said during his visit. “The school said the little sister missed over 20 days. Who’s going to go check and see what’s going on in this home?”
Kim Henderson, the former director of the county’s Child, Family and Adult Services, resigned in March, citing personal reasons.
Photos and applause
Dominique was mentioned twice during the event: once by a member of the Mecklenburg County Childhood Abuse Prevention Team, and the other time by Police Chief Estella Patterson.
Speakers including County Commission Chairman Mark Jerrell, Juvenile Judge Aretha Blake, and Bridget Happney, senior social services manager at Mecklenburg County Youth and Family Services, spoke about the importance of everyone working together to keep children safe.
Speakers also thanked and congratulated their teams, including prosecutors, police officers, and social workers for helping keep children safe. Several of the speakers also thanked the many organizations sitting in the City Council’s chambers for their work. At one point, the crowd posed with their blue pinwheels — a national symbol of child abuse prevention — for a photo.
Happney, while speaking about more than 16,000 reports of potential child abuse the Youth and Family Services department received in 2025, said those calls only happened because people watched closely. More than 9,000 of those were accepted or met the criteria for a Child Protective Services report, Happney said.
“You don’t need proof that abuse or neglect has been happening. You only need a reasonable suspicion,” Happney said. “You just need to be worried to call it in.”
Family reunification
The goal isn’t just to remove kids from bad situations, Happney said, but also eventually reunite them with parents or relatives. In 2025, 197 children were placed in foster care, she said. There are currently 403 children in foster care in the county.
“When I started my journey with Child Protective Services in Meck 25 years ago, we had over 1,200 children in care,” she said. “What’s the difference now? There is a priority placed on prevention and providing services to children and families within the home environment. Foster care is and must be the last resort.”
Last year, 44 children in foster care were reunited with a parent and 29 went into guardianship with relatives, Happney said. Fifty-six were adopted.
Court records showed McKnight was listed as Dominique Moody’s maternal aunt. McKnight filed for custody of Dominique and her sibling in 2020, The Charlotte Observer reported previously. Their mother signed “permanent custody agreements” in 2020, along with forms giving McKnight power of attorney over them. The county issued a permanent custody order after a hearing in September 2021, granting McKnight sole legal and physical custody of the children.
Happney declined on Tuesday to answer the Observer’s questions about the case.
She declined to comment when asked if the county was reviewing the girl’s death to see where and how intervention failed. And she declined to comment on the lack of release of records, or if she was concerned about the county’s ability to protect children from abuse.
Don’t want to jeopardize case
After speakers concluded, Jerrell said he understood if people might have concerns about the county’s ability to prevent child abuse after Dominque’s death.
“We need to make sure we don’t do anything to jeopardize the case, and so I would ask people to refer to the guidance that we’ve been given by the district attorney (and) the county attorney to make sure that the case is not jeopardized in any way,” Jerrell said.
But a trial could be a long way off. Some murder cases in Mecklenburg have taken more than five years to get to trial, something the district attorney has blamed on low staffing and not enough state funding.
Jerrell, asked if he would consider encouraging the county to release the documents, said they should be made public once the case “is not in jeopardy.”
Asked about any review of Dominque’s death and how intervention failed, Jerrell said that while he could not comment on her case specifically, the county is always evaluating how its services work and how they can be improved.
“We’re going to always look at our internal processes, and we’re always going to continue to be an organization that gets better,” Jerrell said.
The event concluded outside the Mecklenburg County courthouse with attendees planting their blue pinwheels in a garden outside the building where Dominque’s family may eventually stand trial.
