Recordings of 911 calls reveal the chain of events leading to the Feb. 15 discovery of a Utah cheerleader and her mother slain in a Nevada hotel room.
Addilyn Smith, 11, was found fatally shot in a Las Vegas hotel room after police received several requests for a welfare check on her and her mother Tawnia McGeehan, who would also be found dead.
Authorities determined McGeehan, 34, shot Addilyn before turning the gun on herself, according to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.

In separate 911 calls, Addilyn’s father and her coach can be heard repeatedly asking police for a welfare check.
The call records were obtained and published online by the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The callers’ names were bleeped out in the recordings.
“I’m trying to figure out where my daughter and her mom is,” says Addilyn’s father in one call. “They were supposed to be at a dance competition this morning, they didn’t show up, people went to their hotel room, they’re not answering the door.”
“They’re not answering messages or even seeing the messages,” he says, adding that it was “very strange,” per the Review-Journal.
When the dispatcher asks him if there had been any ongoing issues with McGeehan, he says no, and adds: “I talked to her yesterday and my daughter and everything seemed just fine. She was at her practice yesterday.”
McGeehan and Addilyn’s father divorced in 2017, per court records previously cited by KUTV.
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Addilyn Smith.Gofundme
In a separate call, Addilyn’s coach tells the dispatcher that the mother and daughter hadn’t shown up to the competition that day.
In another call, also made by the coach, he says they were worried Addilyn “possibly is in imminent danger.”
Police knocked on their hotel room door following the first request for a welfare check, but did not get any response and decided not to proceed with an intervention.
“Based on the details at the time, there was no belief that either was in danger and officers cleared,” LVMPD said in their statement.
Following the repeated calls by that afternoon, hotel security decided to enter the room, LVMPD said, and found the bodies.
Authorities have not declared a motive behind the killings.
According to the court records KUTV cited, McGeehan had temporarily lost custody of Addilyn in 2020. The judge made the ruling citing parental alienation as a reason.
In 2024, a modified decree granted both parents joint legal and physical custody, per the court records. It wasn’t immediately clear what led to the judge’s decision.
McGeehan’s family declined to comment, and PEOPLE is waiting to hear back from her attorney.
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