CHARLOTTE, NC – The grim tale of a 6-year-old girl’s suffering reached a harrowing crescendo this week as three women stood accused of murder months after the child’s agonizing death. The incident, shrouded in months of investigation and mounting horror, has rattled the Charlotte community and raised troubling questions about the circumstances that unfolded within the walls of a modest home on Gwynne Hill Road.
As investigators pieced together the final weeks of Dominique Moody’s life, disturbing details emerged. Moody, once a vibrant child, died in December 2025 under circumstances described by police as unimaginably cruel. Susan Robinson, 61, Tonya McKnight, 51, and Tery’n McKnight, 22, now face charges of first-degree murder—each accused of contributing to or allowing a relentless campaign of abuse that spanned over a year.
Emergency responders arrived at the residence on the frigid winter morning of December 16 after receiving a desperate call that the young girl was unresponsive. Despite their efforts, Moody was pronounced dead at the scene. What authorities found next would haunt even seasoned law enforcement officers.
Charging documents depict a harrowing sequence of events. The little girl’s body bore the visible marks of sustained torment: open wounds, scars in varying stages of healing, grime entrenched in her hair and nails. When weighed, Dominique registered only 27 pounds—a shocking detail for a child her age, and a testament to prolonged deprivation.
Investigators allege Tonya McKnight played a central role in the worst of the physical abuse. Graphic images from a cell phone, according to police, show the child tightly bound in duct tape and plastic wrap. Reports further claim that McKnight withheld food as a form of discipline, sometimes starving Dominique for “many things,” including merely eating without permission.
Statements from one of the accused painted an even more disturbing picture. Authorities say Robinson disclosed that Dominique was routinely forced to watch other family members eat, left to languish in soiled diapers for days, and denied the basic dignity of clean clothes and regular nourishment. According to court documents, this neglect stretched back nearly a year and a half.
The neglect didn’t end with starvation. Investigators revealed that Dominique sometimes slept in a dog crate in the living room, later relegated to a bathroom floor fouled by feces. Meanwhile, Robinson and Tery’n McKnight, whom authorities identify as Tonya’s daughter, are accused of ignoring the suffering and failing to intervene, despite living under the same roof.
The alleged horrors extended to the home itself, described by authorities as a place of squalor and isolation. Four other children, ranging from age one to five, lived amid rats, roaches, and biting cold. With only a space heater and an oven for warmth, the interior temperature dropped as low as 20 degrees overnight. At times, children described placing Dominique in front of the stove in desperate attempts to revive her from the effects of the cold.
Court documents suggest that even after Dominique’s death, there was a frantic attempt by Robinson and Tonya McKnight to conceal the gravity of the situation, exchanging messages about cleaning up the house and acknowledging the legal trouble they faced.
Medical examinations painted the final, chilling details of Dominique’s ordeal: scars circling her ankle, linear marks on her right arm, burns, open wounds, and old fractures—each telling a silent story of pain and neglect.
On Thursday, all three defendants appeared before a Mecklenburg District Court judge who ordered them held without bond. The women remain in jail as authorities continue to investigate the fate of the remaining children, whose current whereabouts and wellbeing have not been made public.
As the community contends with the gravity of the charges and the depth of Dominique Moody’s suffering, the legal case proceeds, determined to bring accountability for the tragedy that unfolded behind closed doors.