Dad kidnaps kids from their mom and starves 4-year-old to death, Georgia cops say

After three kids were removed from their dad’s home over abuse allegations, he kidnapped them from their mother and brought them to live with him until his 4-year-old daughter died of neglect, authorities in Georgia said.

A judge sentenced the 33-year-old dad to life in prison plus 155 years after a jury convicted him of over a dozen charges, including murder, kidnapping, cruelty to children, false imprisonment and contributing to the dependency of a minor, according to Fulton County records.

McClatchy News is not identifying the dad to protect the identity of the surviving children.

His attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment July 11 but said during the trial that the dad “at no time acted with the intention that his children be harmed.”

But according to the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office, the father had a history of neglecting his children.

In June 2023, the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services removed the young girl and her two brothers from their father in Atlanta, finding out they were locked in separate rooms without food, water or air conditioning, prosecutors said.

Their mother had already fled to Maryland with her three older children, but the dad wouldn’t let her take the three younger kids, prosecutors said during opening statements broadcast by Atlanta News First.

After a welfare check, the younger children were given to their mom in Maryland as well.

But two weeks later, the dad went to Maryland, kidnapped his children from their mom, stole her car and brought the kids to live with him in Georgia again, according to an arrest report from the Atlanta Police Department.

For the next six months, the kids lived in a “house of horrors” that prosecutors said was disguised as an unassuming family home, according to a broadcast of the trial.

“They didn’t go to school, they didn’t go to day care, they didn’t play with other kids,” Deputy District Attorney Marshal Hodge said. “They could not even play with each other. He kept all three of them isolated in their own rooms.”

Hodge said multiple additional welfare checks were called in at the home, but the dad fended off social workers and law enforcement until his daughter died.

On Dec. 11, 2023, a 911 call came in about an unresponsive 4-year-old girl, according to prosecutors.

Emergency personnel rushed her to a hospital, where she died of complications from malnourishment and dehydration, prosecutors said. Her brothers, ages 3 and 5, were hospitalized for the same issues, according to the district attorney’s office.

The dad’s defense attorney told the jury the evidence would show that the man loved his children.

This story was originally published July 11, 2025 at 1:52 PM with the headline "Dad kidnaps kids from their mom and starves 4-year-old to death, Georgia cops say."