Tawnia McGeehan, a Utah mother who fatally struck her 11-year-old daughter, Addi Smith, before their cheer competition in Las Vegas on Sunday, February 15, had reportedly been receiving mean texts from other parents on their team, Utah Xtreme Cheer (UXC).
“There’s one or two ladies that she never got along with, and it got really bad a month ago,” McGeehan’s 61-year-old mom, Connie, shared in her latest interview.
Las Vegas police were called to the Rio Hotel & Casino at 10:45 a.m. on Sunday for a welfare check, where they met with hotel security before going to the room the mom and daughter were staying in.
After receiving no response and seeing no signs of immediate distress, they left, only to be called back soon after with the news of their demise.
Tawnia McGeehan’s parent-clash revelation has added an intriguing layer to the Las Vegas catastrophe
Image credits: Tawnia Hope McGeehan
“In the last competition they [Tawnia and Addi] had, another girl dropped, and some of the moms were saying it was because of Addi. They were texting [Tawnia] mean stuff and blaming Addi,” Connie claimed in her February 17 conversation with The New York Post.
UXC owner Kory Uyetake corroborated the assertion, telling the outlet that he was aware of “comments” being exchanged between Tawnia and some other moms.
Image credits: Utah Xtreme Cheer
He, however, said that everything seemed normal on Saturday when the team traveled from Utah to Nevada for the competition.
Addi was in her first season as a member of the team and “loved it,” he divulged, adding she “was the first [to practice] every time.”
Image credits: Tawnia Hope McGeehan
Uyetake went on to express grief over the little girl’s passing, saying, “She didn’t deserve this.”
“Cheer was her [Tawnia] and Addi’s life. I think something happened the day [of the tragedy] that made her spiral,” Connie expressed.
Connie noted that Tawnia was in good spirits before leaving for the competition with Addi
Image credits: Rio Hotel & Casino
Tawnia and Addi, per Connie’s account, had made gifts for the cheer team members, bought new clothes for their trip, and posted cheerful snaps of Addi doing backflips in their hotel room at 5 a.m. on Sunday.
“They looked like they were happy, but then there was one pic of Addi and Tawnia together, and I thought something doesn’t look right,” Connie told The Post through tears.
“The look was off. Something had happened.”
When requests for a search did not stop following the initial police assessment at the Rio Hotel & Casino, hotel staff returned to the room and discovered the lifeless bodies of Tawnia and Addi at around 2:30 p.m.
A note was found on the scene, but Connie says the contents have not been shared by LVPD.
“We had no idea [Tawnia] was contemplating this,” she said.
Image credits: McKennly Smith
“I thought she was doing OK. She’d been having some of the cheer moms over and making things with the kids,” Connie added, while also sharing she was unaware that her daughter owned a firearm.
“[We’ve since learned] she bought it over a year ago,” she said.
The homicide came after Tawnia fought for Addi’s custody for nearly a decade
Image credits: Tawnia Hope McGeehan
Tawnia and her ex-husband, Brad Smith, divorced in 2015.
The couple then spent the next nine years battling for custody of their daughter, with courts implementing numerous rules to keep them as separated as possible.
Image credits: Tawnia Hope McGeehan
In 2024, the court granted McGeehan and Smith joint legal and physical custody of Addi on a week-on, week-off schedule, ordering that all custody exchanges take place outside Addi’s school, with five car lengths between their vehicles to prevent any altercation.
Addi was supposed to walk between the two cars herself. When school was not in session, the handover was ordered to be completed outside the Herriman Police Department in Utah at 9 a.m. each Monday.
Image credits: Tawnia Hope McGeehan
Both parents were warned not to film the custody handover and were banned from approaching one another at Addi’s school events.
The parents were barred from criticizing each other in front of Addi or allowing any relatives to do the same.
Image credits: McKennly Smith
Following the couple’s divorce, it was initially agreed that Addi would reside with McGeehan. However, in December 2020, the court determined that McGeehan had subjected Addi to “parental alienation” and granted Smith sole custody of the child.
The ruling further stated that McGeehan “has committed domestic ab*se in the presence of the minor child.”
Image credits: McKennly Smith
There are 350 submissions related to the couple’s divorce and custody case, but the majority of them are sealed, The Daily Mail reports.
Following Addi and her mother’s disappearance, the child’s stepmother, McKennly Smith, issued a desperate plea referring to her as “my daughter.” Smith shared dozens of photos of Addi alongside her stepsiblings playing together on social media.
“This story breaks my heart. I wish the dad had had full custody,” a netizen remarked
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