SANDY SPRINGS, Ga. — Sandy Springs police have charged the mother of a 1-year-old found dead in a pond on Thursday night with her murder.
Police put out an alert for a missing 1-year-old girl along Concourse Parkway just off of I-285 just after 7 p.m. Hours later, they say the girl’s body was found in a pond. She was later pronounced dead.
Police later arrested the child’s mother, Asia Lewis, on charges of felony murder and cruelty to children. Family members identified the child as 22-month-old Nirvana Oliver.
Channel 2′s Tom Regan was at the office park Friday, where he learned that police were called to a nearby parking deck after reports of a woman acting in a disturbing manner.
Sgt. Matt McGinnis with the Sandy Springs Police Department said she was having “some type of breakdown.”
“The father of the child arrived and asked where the child was,” McGinnis said. “At that time, the mother made the proclamation, ‘At the bottom of the pool.’”
Police and firefighters frantically search the pond. They found the toddler hours later and immediately started giving her CPR.
The child was rushed to Scottish Rite, where she died.
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The medical examiner has still not determined how the child died.
“Whether it’s an actual drowning or something else, we will have to wait on that from the ME to determine exactly what went on there,” McGiniss said.
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Channel 2 Action News spoke to the baby’s aunt, Kelsia Rene Oliver, who said she was the perfect baby girl and that she would have turned two years old on June 18.
“We just want to emphasize that she was LOVED and very well taken care of,” Oliver said. “My brother is the best dad and he loved her with every ounce in his body.”
Another family member, Kianah Nicole Cardona, said that the baby’s mother also loved her very much.
“This is behind what anyone ever though to imagine,” Cardona said. “Mental health is a deadly sniper that crept up on us in the most tragic way.”
They have set up a GoFundMe to raise money for her funeral expenses.
Lewis was scheduled to make her first court appearance this morning at the jail, but it was postponed.
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