GASTON COUNTY, N.C. — Addison Grace Lanham’s 27-pound body was covered with 14 injuries when paramedics tended to her at a room in America’s Best Inn and Suites on July 21.
The 2-year-old died from infection in her bloodstream and pneumonia, but a recently released autopsy more thoroughly describes the extent of the child’s injuries.
Addison’s death garnered regional attention. Her mother and her mother’s boyfriend were charged in her death. Each is serving more than a decade in prison after pleading guilty to second-degree murder.
Neglect leads to death
Shanna Lanham told police she didn’t seek treatment for her daughter’s injuries because she feared having the child taken from her by Gaston County Department of Social Services.
Lanham sobbed uncontrollably when initially interviewed by media about her daughter’s death.
She wept again when arrested and yet again when she pleaded with a judge to let her go to her daughter’s funeral. Her request was denied.
Lanham had been previously interviewed by a social worker regarding the child’s welfare. Since that first interview she ducked social workers so she could continue to live with her sex offender boyfriend, Jason Wells.
Wells was baby-sitting Addison the night she died.
Wells made a call to Lanham when the child’s breathing became labored, and Addison was unresponsive. He then left the hotel before medics arrived.
During a frantic 911 call the day Addison died, Lanham told the operator that her daughter was covered in boils. The autopsy report released over the weekend sheds light on the child’s other, non-life threatening injuries.
Autopsy report
A diagram that accompanies most North Carolina autopsies is splattered with notations pointing to Addison’s scrapes, cuts, bruises and abscesses.
Addison had trauma to her head – a large bruise over the right side of her head that included dried blood in her ear, an abrasion on her forehead and multiple scrapes on her neck, chin, lips and nose.
She had scrapes to her spinal area and bottom. She had multiple scrapes and cuts to her vagina and anus, some in the healing stages.
A rape kit was performed on the child but the findings were not reported in the autopsy. The test was conducted at Gaston Memorial Hospital.
Wells was never charged for sexually assaulting the child.
Child fatality report
All child deaths are reviewed at the local level by a task force. That report is submitted to DSS.
A report is also compiled by DSS and turned into the state level.
A state child fatality task force reviews hand-picked cases and uses the information to decide if there was any wrongdoing by DSS. Addison’s case has been chosen for review. That review has not yet been completed.
Gaston County District Attorney Locke Bell decided not to release the entire DSS file on Addison after her death. He did, however, make public the investigation summary completed by Gaston County DSS. The two-page document showed numerous attempts by social workers to contact Lanham in the months before the little girl’s death.