( 4UMF NEWS ) Mom Starves 16-Year-Old To Death:
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.”
