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Episode 27: Shattered Innocence: The Devastating Murder of Trinity Love Jones

Episode Summary

In this week’s true crime episode, we cover the tragic case of Trinity Love Jones, a 9-year old girl, who was brutally murdered and found dead inside a duffel bag with severe injuries head-to-toe.

Throughout the episode, we discuss how Trinity Jones was abused, neglected, and subsequently murdered by Taquesta Graham and Emiel Hunt, who have both been charged with murder and torture by the California Supreme Court.

We want to discuss and share this case openly to bring attention to the tragic death of Trinity Love Jones and to all the other children who are the victims of neglect, violence, and crime.

Episode Transcript

Julia Avery 0:15
Welcome back to The Family Ties podcast. My name is Julia Avery and this is my sister and co host Kelly, Richie.

Kelley Richey 0:22
Hi, guys. It’s me again. We are glad to be back with you guys after the holidays. I hope everyone had a safe happy and socially distance holiday.

Julia Avery 0:33
Yes. Emphasis on socially distance like you stay at home, please. Yes, he did. Yeah.

Kelley Richey 0:40
Yeah. Anyways, with that being said, 2021 is shaping up to be really no better than I anticipated. So,

Julia Avery 0:50
yeah.

We went into 2021 going New Year new me. No same shit different year.

Kelley Richey 1:01
Yep, exactly. And one thing I wanted to just shout out was the fact that I got a comment from someone I know about the podcast. And they were mentioning to me that we should do some kind of episode that’s more focused upon the detriment of evangelical the evangelical movement in children’s lives specifically, and this person brought up to me the fact that they were kind of told they needed to be saved, and that they were gonna burn in hell forever. If, you know if they didn’t accept Christ, and they spent their whole entire childhood afraid and in fear, and that it was just such mental fuckery. And the reason I’m mentioning this is because I I watched two things over the holidays. And I think I told you about it. Julia, the David Attenborough. Document documentary. That’s, that’s on Netflix.

Julia Avery 2:10
So I still need to watch that.

Kelley Richey 2:12
Yes. Do that. And then I watched the documentary on Bill Nye. And I think I they had a quite a bit in there, you know, with his whole involvement with debating Ken Ham, and with Answers in Genesis, and it started to really dawn on me more and more how damaging it is, and how dangerous I think it is, for people like them to be given a platform of legitimacy. And what we’re teaching kids to be fact because they kids tend to listen to what adults say

Julia Avery 2:53
it’s programming. Yeah, tween ages one and 12. The information that’s fed to you is a sense of programming, because that’s what forms the foundation of a kid’s moral compass their views on life going forward, it really has a really big effect on that. So basically, when you’re giving kids information, you’re programming their their brain. It’s like a, you know, like, when you enter data into a computer, you’re feeding it information to program it. And that’s, that’s why it’s so dangerous. Like you’re saying, when you have certain evangelical movements that feed this stuff into kids heads, before they even have a chance to discern and make their own assumption. They’re basically programmed brainwashed into it. That’s my that’s my thing.

Kelley Richey 3:47
I think part of it also goes into I had a bit of a, I stopped it before it became an argument, but with someone you and I both know, and discussing why I thought it’s the first time I’ve told this person how I feel about the lies of creationism and the denial of science by the evangelical movement. And this person acted as if there’s no proof whatsoever out there that would prove otherwise, you know that the earth wasn’t created in seven literal days. And I’m like, What? Where do you get your information? He’s talking about the the missing link and all the lies that science scientists have told us and how much of a lie evolution is but honestly, I’m going to go with the facts. I you know, I’m not a person of faith, because I can’t deny what’s in front of me to blindly follow something some fairy tale book has told me so. I just think it’s super dangerous that it’s legitimize In any way that there’s some,

Julia Avery 5:02
really not even a lot of facts in the Bible, you know that, like, I’ve read the whole Bible, there’s not a lot of actual facts in there, you know, where people base a ton of their research off of the Bible and they say, the Bible said this, and this is this is that proof. And it’s like, the Bible doesn’t offer these intimate details of actuality. It’s, there’s so many metaphors, there’s so many, like, Noah’s Ark is the only one of the few literal concepts that I can recall. Yeah, you know, as far as evidence, fast,

yeah, whatever.

Kelley Richey 5:44
Anyways,

Julia Avery 5:45
so should that still doesn’t make sense. They don’t even go into detail to explain how the animals came to buy to.

Kelley Richey 5:52
It’s just like, it was a miracle. Julie wears,

Unknown Speaker 5:55
like,

Kelley Richey 5:57
Don’t Don’t ask me how they were able to feed each and every animal for like, three years while the ark was out there, let alone themselves. But you know, who needs a

Julia Avery 6:09
great story? were one of the brothers make a veterinarian, because you know, how easily animals pick up infections? and

Kelley Richey 6:20
not with God’s blessing, Julia when God is involved,

right.

I don’t know why they’d need to build an ark if he was that in control of everything, but

Julia Avery 6:29
water just made everything flood around to them.

Kelley Richey 6:33
Right, right. Yeah,

Julia Avery 6:36
Julie.

Kelley Richey 6:38
Let’s get on to facts. Let’s get on to real things. Um, we have kind of, I think there’s been one week where we haven’t posted. Lately, we’ve been trying to do two a month, but with the holidays that kind of slowed that down. But Julia and I have kind of bounced back and forth between a few cases that we wanted to cover. But someone sent this one to me. And it did upset me so much that I not just upset me, but for many reasons we’ll get into I felt like, this is a good time to cover it. And I think mainly because people seem to forgotten completely about it, even though it was

Unknown Speaker 7:23
tragic,

Kelley Richey 7:25
awful, and so brutal.

Julia Avery 7:29
And I don’t want it’s felt to me, it taught me to separate sittings to get through the entire thing. Yeah, it’s hard. Um, this is, this is a really rough one.

Kelley Richey 7:42
I think one thing I’m going to start in trailing every story with is just that reminder to you all, that I haven’t seen the numbers for 2020 yet, and I’d be curious to see what they are. But before 2024 to seven children die every single day, under conditions similar to the cases that we have been covering. And some of it a lot of it has to do with the lack of manpower for CPS, but also just wear CPS straight up fails. As well as parents and the law, I feel like we have to do better. And in order for us to keep hounding on you guys, with all of these facts, it’s like this is important because there’s I think this 2020 is going to be a record here for child mortality.

Julia Avery 8:43
Absolutely. Because, you know, COVID driving everybody to be in, you know, stay at home, you’ve put a lot more children at risk a lot of women at risk for domestic abuse. Like these least kids that have been forced to homeschool that were going to school in the first place, and it’s put a lot of people in positions of upping those numbers.

Kelley Richey 9:16
And I found I got a comment on our website. And I, I would read it if it was in front of me. But it was by somebody who basically was saying that none of the things that we’ve talked about has anything to do with homeschooling, and that we should feel shame for pushing our political agenda. I will post it I will approve and post it because and respond to that because that’s fine. We encourage we encourage everybody to comment and say stuff. But I would like to say that this case today isn’t necessarily a case that’s based on homeschooling. Our whole point is that, you know, coming from where we came from homeschooling was the reason that the abuse was allowed to continue and the law So I don’t think that Yeah, there was a huge catalyst. Yeah. And we, we were completely without any protection. Because there was no, there’s no safety net for children to

Julia Avery 10:13
do void of outside. Over oversight. Exactly.

Kelley Richey 10:21
So we’re gonna keep pounding on these stories, but I want us to start true. Like, it’s not just for the shock and awe of this, I want people to not forget these kids. And I recently have been in touch with the mother of the reily, Joel and browning. And you know, she can’t talk on the podcast yet because of the court hearing. And she wants to make sure that they see the justice that you know, needs to be seen. So she doesn’t want to mess anything up, or, you know, put the trials in jeopardy. So she will be speaking with us after the trials are over. But she did say that she would get me in touch with the people who are putting Riley’s law back on the table to be passed. And I want each and every one of us to push and to go and sign that petition and to demand that it be passed. And, yeah, we’re not going to forget these kids, we will talk about them. And if their step is still pending, in the legal realm, we are going to revisit it because these kids do not deserve to be forgotten. Know, covered on the news one day, and then you know, later, there’s no need to cover it because it’s not sensational anymore. So yeah, I would like to honor these these kids.

Julia Avery 11:54
right there with you, Kelly. All right, Julie. So

Kelley Richey 11:57
what are we who are we talking about today?

Julia Avery 12:00
We’re talking about Trinity love Jones. She reached nine years old. She looks so sweet. She looks so precious. It said that she loved to write wanted to be a YouTuber, and that she was really smart and cheerful. So this is makes it extra tragic. She just seemed really pure.

Kelley Richey 12:27
Yes. So the circumstances of her death are really disturbing. The headline is that find the exact date. So on March 5, Trinity’s body was found partially stuffed inside of a large duffel bag near the entrance to an equestrian trail in Hacienda Heights in California. The Killing shocked the community and the child’s identity wasn’t confirmed for nearly a week 1000s of tips poured in from across the nation. So this is one of those things where everything about it’s just super tragic.

Julia Avery 13:25
But you know, there are a lot of cases that seem to have like a focus on a certain kind of abuse. But hers checked every box, it seems like

Kelley Richey 13:37
all the boxes who it’s heavy. So it looks like her mom and her mom’s boyfriend. Were the two that have been charged with this murder. And it is a murder. And what is kind of haunting me right now is that, even though this happened in 2019 I think stuff with the court proceedings have probably been stopped and go because of COVID. But they still have not released the cause of her death. So there’s a lot of different factors and one can kind of guess anywhere on the spectrum of what it could be. But even till now, I mean, it hasn’t been released. And another thing that haunts me is that there’s been no other updates. find any news, more recent than last year on this. And so maybe her cause of death has been released somewhere local in California, but I can’t find it.

Julia Avery 14:48
Now. So I mean, it’s still recent, a recent murder. So I mean, it takes sometimes years for court trials to to go through Like, so it’s going to be hard is and that’s and it’s extra frustrating because it’s like, we need to bring attention to it while it’s current. And it’s hard when we don’t have all the data on these recent cases. So I mean, we don’t have that formal cause of death. But there were the notes in there that the person performing the autopsy was, was unable to put all of his findings on a single graph. He had to have multiple graphs because she was scoped so covered in injuries from head to toe, that he had to do multiple graphs to record the injuries, which is mind blowing, and she was nine years old.

Kelley Richey 15:53
And to top off with Julius saying, the evidence shows that the girl had been abused for months. Trinity had been beaten denied food, she was bearing an infection on her feet that made it hard for her to wear shoes. I mean, prosecutors, early at the preliminary hearing, outlined the series of serious injuries the girl suffered before her 2019 death and provided new details, including text messages and videos that led investigators to suspect the girl’s mother and her boyfriend of killing her. So, I mean, it is dark, dark, dark, I

Julia Avery 16:32
mean, especially at least glad that it’s not in question. It’s saying that like the judge, I think it’s um, superior court judge Mike Camacho. He decided that they were the that the evidence showed that they were guilty of systematic abuse and neglect. So it’s not like really at least a hearing of are they guilty? Now this is at least decided, yeah, they’re, they’re guilty. And I think there was there was a video and picture evidence as well, that that incriminated them in abuse as well. So there’s a lot of evidence there, at least. So I’m relieved on behalf of her, that they have at least evidence so that this isn’t a Oh, are they guilty? It’s Oh, how hard should we have? Basically?

Kelley Richey 17:26
Yes. And he also went on to say that it’s clear that the, the abuse was intentional, and the defendants acted with conscious disregard. Earlier, so Adi during so I don’t know how many court huh.

Unknown Speaker 17:47
Go ahead. Oh, sorry.

Kelley Richey 17:50
I was just gonna say that. I don’t know what stage the trials are in because they’ve clearly been in court, like once or twice already, but I don’t know. I can’t seem to find any information to kind of clue me in as to what stage

Julia Avery 18:04
they are. Are the other trials? Are they read trials? Are they trying to get that were they are they being judged by a jury? What kind of trials are they going through?

Kelley Richey 18:17
There is more information later on that will go through but there they have not submitted any, please. I mean, it’s basically there’s just no denying it. It’s just going to be a matter of them trying

Julia Avery 18:27
to get unless this lesser sentence,

Kelley Richey 18:29
right. Sorry. Go ahead. I interrupted you.

Julia Avery 18:33
And they’re not married. So they can. They can? Can they can like come out against each other. Because I think in some states, I don’t know if it’s national or not. But I know they’re in some cases that some people will get married, so they can’t see me. I’ve got a sneeze. It’s like, right, in my left nostril. I’ve

Kelley Richey 18:56
been to the carry otic.

Julia Avery 19:00
Okay, I’m good now. Okay. Anyway, so I think that’s the thing. So because they’re not married, like they can totally testify against each other. Right, right. But sometimes I feel like that works the truth, because that’s one prosecuting one defense team trying to go against the other defense team. And try to, you know,

Kelley Richey 19:23
clearly, though, in this case, as much as I know that the mother is guilty as we go through some facts mean, and clearly they were both in on this abuse together that much. I will not deny, but based on his history, I think I’m pretty positive. He is the one who murdered her. Like, I mean, they both It was like just what constitutes the murderer. I mean, the starvation, the beating like they’re all they’re both complicit. But in court, investigators read aloud some text messages in Witch Hunt, wrote Graham, and let me see here hunt is the man. And we’re just going to go by their last names, because I don’t want to give them any more humanity than that. But hunt is the boyfriend and Graham is the girlfriend. But they, they wrote in texts about punishing the girl at Trinity and complained that she kept urinating on herself. And Graham texted hunt Trinity is going to get it after one such incident. Now let’s just stop for a moment. And remember that urinating and wetting the bed tends to be

Julia Avery 20:43
a sign of abuse,

Kelley Richey 20:44
a pretty good indicator of both physical and sexual abuse.

Julia Avery 20:48
So

Kelley Richey 20:51
I’m in another text exchange from January of less or January of 2019. Can’t say last year anymore. Graham asked hunt to show Trinity the text she had sent, which said we were talking about giving you a burrito, you messed up. I mean, you’re just threatening the kid with starvation. And it’s like it’s

the the pleasure that they seem to get. Just torturing this poor girl is just, um, it’s inexcusable. Absolutely. Is your humanity entirely?

Julia Avery 21:27
Absolutely.

Julia Avery 21:32
So where where do you want me to pick up

Kelley Richey 21:34
wherever you want? Julia lulea.

Julia Avery 21:39
You have things in a certain order? Did did that order matter? Do you want us to jump around? Or

Kelley Richey 21:45
you can jump around however you want. I left that the stuff up top because I want to kind of circle back around to it. I was just gathering some

Julia Avery 21:56
you know, so what I want to go ahead and get into the events and then kind of go over what what led up to it or how did you want to?

Kelley Richey 22:06
You could pick up right after I left off where they were talking about giving her the burrito?

Kelley Richey 22:12
Okay, let me find that. All right.

Julia Avery 22:18
All right. So in interviews with investigators hunt and Graham said that, two weeks before her death, Trinity fell and hit her head. LA County Sheriff’s detective Mark boisvert voice fair. How do you pronounce that name killing?

Unknown Speaker 22:35
boisvert?

Kelley Richey 22:36
I don’t know.

Julia Avery 22:39
Okay, I don’t know. So not the only one slightly confused. So there was a large lump on her forehead and her left and right eyes had begun to swell. She became lethargic and started to slur her words and that’s an indicator of some brain damage. Yes. From head trauma.

Kelley Richey 22:58
It’s like how did she fall and hit her head?

Julia Avery 23:01
Huh? Huh? So Graham had told investigators that on February 28, she woke up and noticed Trinity was congested. Voice Bert testified she said she gave the child Pedialyte soup in a bagel. Then took a shower. When she got out, she noticed that Trinity’s teeth were clenched, and she was having a seizure. The detective said.

Unknown Speaker 23:26
Sure. Yeah.

Kelley Richey 23:28
I mean, we I’m sure that some of that’s true, but I think we can tell that the whole feeding the child is probably applies since they were actively starving her. Yeah, that afternoon, Graham went to work at $1 store while hunt waited in the parking lot. Trinity was in the backseat of the car sleeping. So they say when Graham got off work about 9:30pm the three returned to a hotel and hunt carried the child back to the room.

Julia Avery 24:01
Later that night, Graham checked on Trinity and noticed she wasn’t breathing. She told authorities her first thought was that hunted place to pillow over Trinity space. Well, they were the STB earlier that evening, so she thinks that Trinity was killed before they carried her into the hotel.

Kelley Richey 24:17
I mean, yeah, none of its making sense, because clearly.

Julia Avery 24:22
Why does she suspect that and why is she suspected that wouldn’t she have checked? You know, when he was carrying her into the hotel? Like why did she wait to check? Like if she suspected then like?

Kelley Richey 24:39
Well, if you think about it, it’s kind of like when it’s very specific. Remember when Madison’s answer was like, her story was to two different ways. Like first she said she walked and stepped over. James Alex thinking that he was sleeping on the floor. And then in the next thing she was like, I think Thinking and I texted someone and said I think he’s killed. I think Sasa thirds killed him. It’s like, which one is it? He’s He’s resting or he’s dead. Right?

Julia Avery 25:14
So but like her her what she suspects seems like really specific

Unknown Speaker 25:20
Yes.

Julia Avery 25:21
thing like it’s not just oh, I think he might have killed her. It’s I think he might have smothered her face with a pillow in the SUV, meaning maybe that’s exactly what he did. And she saw him do it.

Kelley Richey 25:35
I just want to know, like if she did have a seizure? If any of that is true, and she had that seizure,

why on earth would you still go to work? And your boo is sitting in the car?

Julia Avery 25:51
Like, why didn’t they take her to the to the hospital?

Kelley Richey 25:55
Right? Why he has time he’s clearly not working. So what’s he doing? Just sit chillin in the parking lot. If you’re having a full length

Julia Avery 26:02
route to the hospital immediately, she should have called out of work to be at the hospital with her kid.

Kelley Richey 26:07
Yeah, I don’t think either of them had any intention of allowing her to live either way. Whether it be she had a seizure, and they’re like, well, we’ll just see how it goes. Which I don’t believe I don’t believe about the seizure. Sorry, the dogs are literally going nuts behind me playing. Okay.

But I think it’s just one of those things where if she’s unresponsive in the car, like there, there’s just parts of the story that are missing and will be missing until these trials are over. But I really I need to know what happened. I just do.

Julia Avery 26:48
Absolutely. There are a lot of holes based on their mismatched testimonies. So hunt told investigators that he woke up about 3am on March 1. And notice that Trinity was not breathing. He said he and Graham freaked out because of their criminal histories but told each other, we didn’t do anything wrong.

Kelley Richey 27:11
So they knew she was dead at that point that much seems pretty clear. So what he is talking about what hunt is referring to is that

Julia Avery 27:21
he was really incriminating criminal history. Yeah,

Kelley Richey 27:24
yeah, who’s very specific as well. Hunt was convicted of felony child abuse in San Diego County in 2005 and was sentenced to 12 years in state prison. So before I go into her criminal history, I’m going to go back up to the top here. And

Julia Avery 27:41
hold on what was the rest of it? He has a prior conviction for involvement with a minor. No, that’s her. That’s her. So cut that out. I saw no none of that. No,

Kelley Richey 27:55
um, but his felony child abuse. And I looked it up in let me just define it for you. According to free advice.com. a felony child abuse is defined as an assault or abuse of any child including the negligence or recklessness or intentional injury of a child. Many felony child abuse case defendants find themselves in a contemporaneous civil suit regarding the custody of their children. punishment for felony child abuse includes prison time of two to 20 years from minor injuries and up to 99 years for serious injuries. But let’s let’s dive into that even further as well. Because I find it extremely important

Unknown Speaker 28:48
to find this.

Kelley Richey 28:54
Okay, so there are documents that detail the malnutrition and abuse a three year old boy suffered at the hand of his father who is now facing murder charges in the death of a nine year old girl found in a duffel bag on Hacienda Heights hiking trail. Hunt, who is 38 was charged with murder Tuesday, two years ago, in the death of nine year old Trinity love Jones, who was previously convicted of child abuse in 2005 after his toddler son was found unresponsive, malnourished and bruised at their San Diego home. documents obtained by NBC seven on Wednesday described the events of March 30 2004 when San Diego police department officers found the unresponsive three year old boy and rushed him to Rady Children’s Hospital trauma unit. The child had severe bloating and internal injuries to his chest, abdomen, back, arms and legs. He was intubated and had several episodes of low heart rate and require drugs to bring up the heart rate. The three year old was so underweight he was in the third percentile for children his age and had old scars and bruises all over his body. A doctor told police the child had malnutrition that could only have been caused by prolonged neglect. Hunt was subsequently arrested on one count of torture and two counts of child abuse. Following the arrest hunts partner at the time, was interviewed about the child’s care while in their custody. And when officers asked her if the couple punished the child she admitted hunt would spank the boy with a belt or cord about four times a week. She also described to the police how they would withhold food from the toddler as a form of punishment.

Julia Avery 30:45
A time here.

Kelley Richey 30:46
When the meals consisted of green beans and mixed vegetables. Meat was only given as a reward. He’s

Julia Avery 30:55
Yeah, he’s

Kelley Richey 30:56
not even four years old. The year following his arrest, hunt pleaded guilty to one count of child abuse and was sentenced to 12 years in prison. The mom was ordered by the California Superior Court of San Diego County to attend a year long child abusers treatment program because of the abuse she witnessed, but also was involved in because don’t pretend she wasn’t

Julia Avery 31:21
a

Kelley Richey 31:24
I’m sorry, Julia, you let your you’re not even the parent of Cara. But if you saw either of them, withholding food from her. Do you think for one second, you would let her stay in that situation? Do you think for one second?

Julia Avery 31:42
No, no, no.

Kelley Richey 31:44
So I’m sorry. I don’t feel bad for this lady. For for what she saw, what about what happened to her? Her baby?

Julia Avery 31:51
Exactly. Um,

Kelley Richey 31:53
so anyways, I wanted to get that out of the way because I really I want to put some perspective on this because

Julia Avery 31:59
I want to know how he was allowed to get away with 12. Just 12 years seems very small to me in comparison to the crime. Like the punishment does not seem to fit the crime. And him being able to get out again and murder a child have access to fathering or being there in a that that close that close with another child? How? How the hell did that happen? Why did people get charged more for marijuana possession,

Kelley Richey 32:37
like, fuck. And needless to say, even if he did serve, I don’t know if he served that entire 12 years. But let’s just put it this way. If someone goes to prison for something like that, I don’t believe that person should be allowed to have a child in their care. in any capacity. I feel like there should be some kind of lead up level they can get in

Julia Avery 33:05
kind of like a sex offender registry. Something similar but for keeping them away from children.

Kelley Richey 33:14
Because if, if you get out even if you’ve served your time, clearly there’s some kind of emotional or mental issue that that person has, due to their own past abuse at the hands of someone else. That whole starvation, like almost killing your own child. There should be no way in hell, you get your hands on another child. I’m sorry, I know. I’m not sorry. The thing is, is I’m so sick of people talking about the rights of the individual. But here’s the thing, you you pass on your rights, the minute that you are you beat hurt or killed children, or, you know, women, battering women, those are patterns of behavior. You don’t just serve time and be like, I’m cute. I’ll never hit a kid again. No, it’s a cycle. So without correct supervision, I don’t think they should be allowed.

Julia Avery 34:14
I’m sorry. They don’t like they have to have another person, like a designated person with them. If they’re going to like if they’re already a parent, and say the kids need to have time with their father or their mother, you know, have a designated official that is monitoring their interactions. Yeah, no is there with them? That’s just alone. So here’s a

Kelley Richey 34:39
case where he already has that record. That record should already have been enough of the red flags that needed that there were needed for this little girl to have avoided being killed that their hands. So to me, this is on our law and judicial system at This point. So anyway, what about What about her? What about gram? Julia? What’s gram got under her belt?

Julia Avery 35:12
I’m scrolling through on my phone. I’m trying to find where it is.

What part of the document?

Kelley Richey 35:25
Oh, so it’s right after talking about him, it’s a on page two, bottom of page two highlighted in yellow.

Julia Avery 35:37
Uh huh. All right. So I mean, I don’t. Alright, so apparently Graham has a prior conviction for involvement with a minor in prostitution. So do you know that she hails on that?

Kelley Richey 35:57
I think that I found some things on that later on. But I’m pretty sure she solicited someone to, like a young girl to turn tricks for them or something.

Julia Avery 36:10
Oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah. For them, not just for her.

Kelley Richey 36:15
Not like she was getting sexual favors. I think she was. I don’t know, the full details on that.

Julia Avery 36:22
That’s disgusting. Yeah. Um, so I think so her thing is, you know, she, she’s trying to act like she had part of a conscience. Like, like, he was the instigator. And we believe that he’s the instigator, but like, her trying to think that, oh, this made me angry. But then I just like went along with it. It’s like, I’m not okay with that. I don’t accept that answer, lady. No, no, they’re still responsible. So after like, you know, they woke up, they woke up and found her dead. She’s saying that she had wanted to call 911. And that he told her not to, and suggested that they put her in the dumpster, out back of that hotel. So apparently, that angered her. And she, but she also said that she didn’t want to take the Trinity to the hospital because she was afraid of getting into trouble. No shit, because you should. Um, yeah, so her fear of getting into trouble for things that she’s very much guilty and responsible for overrode her motherly instinct to make sure that her child was okay. That’s so fucked up. Because like, that’s a hard, that’s a hard thing to override. Instinctively And naturally, biologically. You know what I mean?

Kelley Richey 37:45
Knowing that life or death kind of hangs in the balance

Julia Avery 37:48
that says a lot. There’s a lot about you and there. I mean,

Kelley Richey 37:54
I’m sorry. But can I also ask about this hotel that they’re kind of living in? Clearly, there’s a weird situation there. Yeah. But if there are other guests at a hotel, and she’s being beaten,

Julia Avery 38:10
they can hear that those guys aren’t, aren’t aren’t thick, like they’re thin, you can hear shit.

Kelley Richey 38:15
I just want to go after everyone. Everyone who heard something didn’t say something, saw something didn’t say something.

Julia Avery 38:24
Always Always their business. So they need to deal with it because it’s their business.

Kelley Richey 38:31
I mean, I really I struggle so much with wanting to hold those people accountable and having to be at peace with the idea that a lot of the people that could have probably saved her life. Mm hmm.

Julia Avery 38:50
Somebody that heard it going on in the hotel room next door, called the police had her removed from them placed at least in the system, so she’s getting food. She’s getting care.

Kelley Richey 39:01
I just have to be okay with the fact that they, the only necessarily the only repercussions they’ll face is just the deep shame. I hope it haunts their waking moments. So not everybody gets their just desserts, that’s for sure.

Julia Avery 39:23
No, that’s hard. It is. So, you know, if I at least we don’t have just their testimonies against each other what they their version of events is at least we have footage surveillance footage from like both the motel and from like a local Walmart. There’s footage of them walking to the car from the motel with her body wrapped in a blanket, and then them at Walmart buying like shovels and stuff. So premeditation is going into this. Yes, this is it, this isn’t an accident, they are covering up because of guilt, because they have done something they have murdered her, and they’re trying to hide it. That’s

Kelley Richey 40:20
not just based on their criminal record accident, right? I mean, that the starvation, the physical abuse and the scars, they know, they know that if they report this, someone’s going to ask them those questions like, what did you do to this girl, and they don’t want the repercussions. They don’t want to, they don’t want to have to face the music. And you know, that’s the ultimate sign of a coward who has spent their time preying upon someone who is so much smaller than you with so much hope, genuine, you know, hope for the future and just being a child. I can’t even fathom that that mindset.

Julia Avery 41:07
No. I’m so funny. I mean, to add on to this grant, the mom this whole time had an ankle monitor on. Yeah, tracking everything

Kelley Richey 41:23
there. And then they were also spotted at the discount store, purchasing the rollaway duffel bag that was identical to the one she was found in. It’s like,

Julia Avery 41:32
yeah, there’s another person to be angry with. The person that came by comes by to check in on the ankle monitor data and stuff like there. There are people that are supposed to check in on that right? Didn’t they witness? Sorry.

Kelley Richey 41:55
When you came in the door, and now they’re freaking out?

ought to let them back in. And

Julia Avery 42:13
I just find like, so classy. But Alex is making noises?

Kelley Richey 42:20
Oh, no.

Julia Avery 42:23
But the person who provided the ankle monitor and has been checking in with Graham, did they never see Trinity? Did they never have any idea of what was going on there? to record it. Like anything? Did they hide her whenever they came by or like? I mean, because they had to if if they were doing their job correctly when they have come in and witnessed anything. That’s my thing is I think that would have happened and they would have had the opportunity to also report it.

Kelley Richey 42:55
I don’t know how the ankle monitor situation works to be honest with you. But yeah, I mean, they should be able to, I’m sure they have to when they are on probation like that they they do have to do some kind of regular check ins. I don’t know if they have to go into the police station or vice versa. But you know, at some point somebody saw Trinity. People saw Trinity. Trinity was not just hidden away. So

Julia Avery 43:23
Well, I mean, and they had also been living with family the year before, and had just moved out the year before 2018. So their family knew about this. Exactly.

Kelley Richey 43:47
So

Julia Avery 43:49
and then,

Kelley Richey 43:51
after they discovered the body, the police. LA County investigators asked for the public’s help to identify her and a relative called authorities after seeing a sketch and photo of her. Investigators say that Graham hunt and Trinity had moved out of a relative’s home in July of 2018 and then slept in hunts SUV and at various hotels. So extended family had said they had seen the girl periodically after the move. And when. So I also can’t help but throw a little bit of responsibility on this extended family.

Julia Avery 44:30
Yeah.

Kelley Richey 44:31
Who even if you saw her periodically, I mean, clearly

Julia Avery 44:35
this stuff totally show so far back. Yeah, this goes far back. You know, you knew about it. Yeah, you probably bore witness to it.

Kelley Richey 44:44
And as it happened, it even goes further back than this, Julia, but we’ll get there. What next?

Julia Avery 44:52
So investigators looked into Graham enhanced criminal histories and began searching for them as possible. suspects because, clearly, and not only that, but like, dude, all this surveillance shows them doing some sketchy shit. So Graham was arrested on an unrelated warrant March 8 at a border patrol checkpoint in Texas, where she tried to cross the border. Just trying to flee the country. guarantee motherfucker with her ankle bracelet. So,

Kelley Richey 45:31
in this Graham and hunt both told investigators different stories on the circumstances that might have led to Trinity’s death. So, you know, it’s clear that they both you know, are, are partially to blame for this girl’s death, or else their stories would probably be the same, but their stories are going to be in a way that makes them look a little bit better. And like they were just scared. And

Julia Avery 46:00
yeah, they’re and anytime that you have multiple people that are possibly in it together, everyone’s going to be focusing on self preservation. So they will twist their stories to highlight when the other person was more guilty. They’re their truths are going to be shaped around what makes them look better. So there are partial truths, where you pick up little things and you’re like that, that nugget seems like that’s that probably lines up with that injury right there. But the circumstances around the tail don’t really line up. And so, Hunt was arrested a day later, so March 9, after he was found sleeping in his SUV near a San Diego International Airport.

Kelley Richey 46:48
Yeah. And the rest of this stuff we’ve kind of we’ve gone over but I think one thing to cap off this this portion of the article I found is that NBC Seven News spoke with Hunt’s estranged father, who said that his son’s prior child abuse conviction could have played a role in Jones’s death. It could have I would say, yes. Oh, no shit,

Julia Avery 47:14
stating the obvious here.

Kelley Richey 47:18
So if he is convicted, hunt is going to face up to 55 years in to life in prison.

Julia Avery 47:27
Life at this point, he had a chance to change his behavior after the first child, he destroyed emotionally. And I mean and mentally, and then he ruined it by fucking murdering another child. He shouldn’t get a third chance. Now a third child and the possible future as an nasty old man. No, no.

Kelley Richey 48:00
So I’m going to skip over the part here about her. Her funeral just to kind of go over the crux of I think so many of these cases we cover and this involves the many failings of social services. Now how did they fail Trinity and eight years before she, for gram was charged with killing her daughter and dumping her body in Hacienda Heights. She was accused of abusing and neglecting Trinity when she was one years old, according to a report on the Department of Children and Family Services, like

Unknown Speaker 48:44
baby fucking baby.

Kelley Richey 48:48
The report includes an allegation of sexual abuse because Graham was a registered sex offender said Michelle Vega, who is Public Affairs Director for Child Services. She said that Child Services found the sexual abuse allegation unfounded and the allegation of neglect inconclusive. Oh, Trinity appeared to be a healthy nurse developing appropriately without any signs of trauma or abuse and was visibly bonded to her mother. According to a statement from dcfs the social worker interviewed the mother in other contexts and assess the living conditions of the home which were all appropriate

Julia Avery 49:31
What’s her development assessed by a doctor? Or is that just their their surgery review where they’re just like, Oh, it looks like a healthy baby I guess.

Kelley Richey 49:43
We’ll just the whole thing

Julia Avery 49:44
it clearly she loves it. Was this like, was this just their visual assessment? Or was this actually

Kelley Richey 49:54
Well, I mean, they they interviewed friends and family but friends and family have has seen Trinity up until now. And knows what the parents what the mom is like privy to this information and

Julia Avery 50:05
they lived with them at one point. Why a year before she fucking was fucking killed.

Kelley Richey 50:14
There’s no way that someone in that family, there’s no way that someone there didn’t know what was going on. Absolutely not.

Julia Avery 50:21
No, sorry. Nope, nope.

Kelley Richey 50:26
And the one thing I do feel really bad about is I did want to talk about the Father. Um, I I found him on Facebook, I think and I would really like to reach out to her to him who I’m so tired. No, um, but he posted some stuff on on Facebook, about it. And it kind of wrenched my heart a bit but and this kind of goes into what you and I were just talking about Julia. But he says it’s crazy how I have heard nothing about a little girl’s body being found stuffed in a suitcase until this morning. But so many people have. This was my youngest daughter who I had been reaching out to only to have conflict. Why would you not take her to her dad instead of killing her? Antonio mareel, Marquis Jones, I probably butchered that stated that Trinity had been bouncing from family members and was living with his baby mother sister. So I mean, I there there are so many lines that have been crossed here by different family members. So she’d been bounced around from place to place. There’s no mystery here over prolonged abuse, there’s no way that these family members would not have seen the scars that covered her body. And so he says the father says rather than giving my daughter to me, they would rather give Trinity back to her mother and obviously crazy boyfriend. He has every right to be livid.

Julia Avery 51:56
Did it ever say Why? He didn’t have that much access to her?

Kelley Richey 52:03
I mean, they weren’t married. And I don’t I don’t know, if they went through a custody battle. I mean, clearly he has other children. I don’t know what that situation is like. But um, he says, It’s crazy. I’ve been asking her in this dude to let me see my daughter just bring me my daughter. And yet still they chose this option.

Julia Avery 52:28
Obviously, they didn’t they fucking hated her. Why? Why? Hold on to her? What? Were they getting any benefits from having her live with them?

Probably, like,

tax wise. Well, I

Kelley Richey 52:45
don’t know if they’re welfare options. I mean, it seems like since they had lived with family, and then they were living out of the SCV that they were borderline homeless.

Julia Avery 52:57
They’re probably keeping her for some benefits.

Kelley Richey 53:01
Yeah, I don’t know. Welfare you can get if you have a child. You know, those are? That’s another thing.

Julia Avery 53:11
That’s tough for me. Yeah. So, I mean, we had another case, the other case where Alex was being kept in hopes of getting that money, you know, that monthly, their monthly check from his dad.

Kelley Richey 53:26
So clearly the family on the mom’s side has caused is partially, I think, implicit here. And he says the father says that he reached out multiple times and attempts to see Trinity but was denied by extended family members. In a Facebook Live Stream he did he asked women not to keep children from their fathers out of spite. Oh my God said don’t hold somebodies kid from them. Just because you don’t like them. something could happen to the kid any day, then all you’d be able to say is what Trinity’s aunt said to me. Sorry, tone, I didn’t know sorry, tone. I didn’t know. This is the same Auntie that made it very, very difficult for me to see my daughter. Now you tell me you have all these pictures? You can send me a trinity before I didn’t have no pictures of her.

Julia Avery 54:14
Just Oh my god.

Kelley Richey 54:15
Tragic. I mean, so the family is partially the, you know, grandma’s family is partially.

Julia Avery 54:24
Absolutely, absolutely. They perpetuated the cycle.

Kelley Richey 54:29
Yeah. As we sort of go towards wrapping this up, Julia, do you want to kind of talk about her life celebration? I’ve watched I watched every video I could. That was covering all this. And I mean, one thing I will say is that I saw a video where the news was covering the one of the first court hearings and it got really rowdy. Like family people were shouting At hunt and like had to be removed from the courtroom, it’s all been very emotional. And I’m wondering if those people were on the father’s side or or Graham side or or both. But there is a lot of fucked up family issues going on here that have played a role in this girl’s death. And I think hopefully all of them have taken a long hard look at themselves. Yeah.

Julia Avery 55:36
Where is the life celebration? on here,

Kelley Richey 55:43
bottom of page five into top of page six.

Julia Avery 55:51
I don’t have it doesn’t give me page numbers. Oh.

Kelley Richey 56:03
It’s right before the more feelings from social services. Okay. Okay.

Julia Avery 56:18
So from her funeral, where it says this precious nine year old? Mm hmm. All right. So at her funeral, it was said this precious nine year old girl at her own celebration of life has been able to gather people from all walks of life. Something has to be said about this brilliantly young life with the capacity to transcend generational borders and surpass economic, religious, and even political party affiliations. Those who know her well would argue they’re not surprised about the surplus of people in attendance today, the funeral attendees were also invited to bring a new children’s book to be donated in Trinity’s memory to children in need. Trinity scholar said.

Kelley Richey 57:03
I think,

wow. And we still don’t have the exact cause of death. But as it lies right now, that is the information that I could find. But I want us to just take a moment to think about the life of a little girl who had so many dreams and so many hopes and I No, no, I’m not trying to make all kids seem like angels. I know that there are some real

Julia Avery 57:37
can be difficult

Kelley Richey 57:38
kids can be running, but nobody here is I mean, the one thing that she seemed to have against her by these two people was wedding herself. But then you you look at the mom who has a record of the sexual abuse and the prostitution of

Julia Avery 57:55
a minor.

Kelley Richey 57:58
It just goes a long way and just trying to think what did this little girl see in the short time span she was alive. And still, I mean, she was found in a shirt that said future princess and Princess is scratched out. And that says hero and for her to be found in that it makes it even worse, just because you’re if you see pictures ever you just see this little vibrant. She there’s videos of her dancing in church. They were talking about how she just stamped love to dance for Jesus and she

Julia Avery 58:41
she’s just full of sweetness. If we do if everyone does this case, it’s justice, proper justice, she can be a hero through her story, really helping to make change in our systems to help at least decrease the amount of times this kind of abuse happens to other kids. Yeah, so maybe she was a hero. And the sense that she is the tail for other children.

Kelley Richey 59:17
Yeah. I think it’s this it’s hard to get any satisfaction from this because I don’t know what’s happening. And we’re gonna keep looking and we will kind of circle back around to all the ones that we’ve covered so far, just to see where

Julia Avery 59:33
some of these could take a couple years like two years because court anything dealing with the courts gets so delayed, so backlogged I mean,

Kelley Richey 59:43
but one thing I learned in broadcasting and television production, when I was doing that at Western is that in the news, it has become part and parcel for Of course, you’re going to cover something that is attention grabbing salacious, you’re going to cover anything that’s bad or terrible, and you’re gonna you’re gonna focus on that. But here’s the thing is they focused on it for a day or a week, you know, until you know, they may have covered it a few separate times. But now that the years past, no one’s checking back in, there’s no updated news. It’s like, it fell off of everyone’s radar. And this is how it happens. Like, I want to know, I want to know each of those. I want to read something about each of those four to seven children that die every day in this country. I want us to get so sick of seeing it. I want it. I wish it was all in our faces all the time. Yeah, it’s bleak.

Julia Avery 1:00:51
People don’t want to hear about it. Because when you when something’s loud, you tend to do something about it, like the squeaky wheel gets gets the oil, right. Mm hmm.

Kelley Richey 1:01:02
Yeah, that’s true. Well, what I do want to close this out with Julia, is just to say that this is a new year, and we are renewing our promise to all of you to to cover these tough cases, no matter how long it takes us to finally read and digest through all of the information and research. But this case, in particular, I still am going to reach out and do some other things because I really want to I want to get to the bottom of what’s going on there. And we’re gonna keep you posted on Riley’s law as well and let you know where to go what to do. But in the meantime, if you could rate and review us on whatever platform you’re listening on, Julie, what

Julia Avery 1:01:50
should they give us like a star 25555. But

Kelley Richey 1:01:58
she drives a hard bargain. I love each and every one of you please join the family rate review, subscribe, all those things, and we will be back with you guys again soon. Thank you.

About Author

Kelley grew up as the fourth of six children in small town Hodgenville, Kentucky where she and her siblings were all homeschooled until graduation when she escaped off to college. Ever since she has been on a quest for learning and enlightenment. She is deeply passionate about politics, animals (particularly dogs and horses), art, film, fashion, and global issues.

2 Comments

  • Barbara Jones
    January 28, 2021 at 5:12 pm

    Thank you for keeping my grandaughter Trinity Love Jones name alive.Im her perternal grandmother. They kept me away from Trinity.

    Reply
    • Kelley Richey
      January 28, 2021 at 5:28 pm

      Thank you so much for listening/watching! It was such a tough case to get through and I am deeply sorry for your loss. Julia and I would be honored to speak with you if you would be open to doing a short interview with us. I would like to hear your side of the story and get a deeper insight into this sweet little girl’s brief life.

      Reply

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