‘I JUST WANT TO HOLD HER’ Avery Kirby expresses a range of emotions as he talks about his daughter, Alyssia Kirby. Gray Whitley | Times Father of slain 2-year-old opens up about the months before and after daughter was killed By Olivia Neeley Times Staff Writer He can see her. She’s playing on the floor. He stops what he’s doing in that moment, picks her up and holds her tightly in his arms. He doesn’t want to let go. He can feel her. While that moment seems real, it’s nothing but a dream. Then he wakes up to find he’s not holding his daughter at all. Instead, he’s clinging to a pillow. “When I dream about her, usually right before I wake up I realize I’m dreaming,” Avery Kirby said. “And I’m crying already in my sleep. I hold her, I hold her as close as I can. I wake up and it’s my pillow. And she’s not here anymore. There is no going back to sleep after those dreams.” See KIRBY, Page 3A Avery Kirby has his daughter’s small shoes and funeral program in a display frame. Gray Whitley | Times Kirby: ‘She’s real to me in the dreams’ continued from page 1A ago, the trial resulted in a hung jury — EQUALLY GUILTY 11 to 1 in favor Avery’s daughter, Alyssia of a not guilty Kirby, was killed Nov. 29, verdict. 2010, investigators said. Before ReAlyssia Last week, Matthew dance was Redance pleaded guilty to sentenced by accessory after the fact to Wilson County’s Superior felony child abuse inflicting Court Judge Milton F. Fitch, serious injury and felony Redance told the court obstruction of justice. At the how much he wanted to be time of his daughter’s death, with his two little boys. He Redance was in a relationwanted to continue to take ship with Avery’s ex-wife, care of them. Redance had Angel Kirby Lamm, who been placed on house arrest pleaded guilty last year to for 10 months after the first accessory after the fact of trial. first-degree murder and aid“I try to make people ing and abetting child abuse. understand,” Avery said. She is currently in jail and “He talks about his sons will be sentenced at a later and how much he loves date, according to officials. them. He’s not going to get Both have maintained they to see them for a couple of didn’t kill the toddler, who years. I have to visit mine suffered a gruesome death in the cemetery. All I get — a fatal blow to the stomto see is a concrete block ach ripping her intestines or maybe some pictures. I and a 5-inch skull fracture might get lucky and have that began at the back of a dream about her someher head, extending to her times where I can actually spinal cord. And while Avery hold her.” might not ever know whose Alyssia’s birthday was hands his daughter died by, this past October. She in his eyes, both Angel and would have been 4. Avery Redance are guilty. and his family visited her “The barest minimum, grave that day. While he she (Angel) knew what tries to stay away from the was going on,” Avery said concrete block because the in an interview with The pain is still raw, he gathWilson Times. “I thought ered up enough strength they both were equally to visit her that day. As the guilty. While one probably family gathered around actually did the blow, the Alyssia’s gravesite, Avother one didn’t do anyery’s mother, Mary Neeley, thing to stop it or tell anysilently prayed for a sign body after the fact.” that Alyssia was OK. And He said his hate for both in that moment, the whipis pretty much equal. ping wind, which had been “As a father, I would like constant all day, ceased for both of them to burn rea few moments. ally,” he said. “I believe in It was still and quiet as if my heart that he (Redance) Alyssia’s spirit had arrived. did the fatal blows and Avery said after that the Angel had full knowledge, wind picked back up. But which to me makes them they all felt sure it was her both guilty.” visiting. THE DREAM SLOWLY FADES INTUITION SPEAKS Avery, who is seated in his dining room, has those fleeting dreams about his little girl at least once a week. “I feel her,” he said. “She’s real to me in the dream. I can’t enjoy the dream. It’s like I immediately know that I am dreaming. And I just want to hold her, tell her I love her because I know she’s about to go away.” Then the dream slowly fades. “It goes dark,” he said. “Then I realize I’m awake and she’s gone again.” Avery, who swallows and pauses for several seconds, said he can’t go back to sleep after that. “I just lay there, wishing to stay asleep because that’s where she is,” he said quietly. “That’s my only comfort.” That comfort, he said, guides him in knowing he will see his baby girl again someday, far different than how he last saw her — hooked up to monitors and cords reaching out of her small frame. And he has enough faith to know, he said, he will get to that, even if he’s supposed to go to hell. If that happens, Avery said he would ask God for only one thing. “I just want to see her for a moment,” he will request. He knows she’s in heaven, where she still has her innocence and is no longer fearful of those who inflict pain upon her. Her spirit is free. Avery, an ex-Marine, began searching for a new career opportunity back in 2010, which would eventually lead him to railroad training in California. While it would be nearly three months away from his daughter, it was time to change careers. And that new career would benefit his daughter. Avery said before he left for California that September for training, something wasn’t right. A strong feeling came over him. “I couldn’t put my finger on it,” he recalled about the intuitive response. “I didn’t know if something was going to happen to me or something was going to happen to my daughter.” He said he called a family member to express the bad feeling. “Something is not right,” he told him. “Something is wrong.” The family member asked if he was having a premonition. “Not a premonition, just a gut feeling something isn’t right,” he said. He was reassured that he was getting an education and starting a new career. Everything was fine. Maybe it was nerves getting the best of him since he was about to embark on a different chapter in his life. He said he even called Angel’s mother and told her he was going to be gone for a couple of months and to keep an eye on Alyssia. Avery said he told her he wasn’t accusing Angel of anything because he, too, got bruises as a child. The bruising had started recently. He was given logical explanations from Angel and her family members. “Just keep an eye on my daughter,” he told Angel’s mother. “It would just make me feel better. If you see anything out of the ordinary, give me a call.” He said it wasn’t a suspicion that something was going on, he just wanted to reiterate how he was THE CEMETERY AND A CONCRETE BLOCK A week ago, Redance was scheduled to stand trial in Alyssia’s death. He and Angel were initially charged with first-degree murder and felony child abuse charges. If Redance had not entered into a plea arrangement last week, he would have been tried for the second time in the 2-year-old’s death. A year feeling at the time leaving his daughter for such an extended amount of time, which he had never done before. A HAUNTING LETTER As last week’s interview continued, Avery often became overwhelmed with emotion. He paused to collect himself when remembering his big blue-eyed little girl. At one point he got up from the dining room table to retrieve a shadowbox frame his mother made him. The shadowbox frame holds Alyssia’s tiny pink flip-flops alongside her funeral bulletin that displays a photograph of her. “I have all of her stuff,” he said. “I have clothes, pictures, items that were in her room upstairs. And whenever I do have to go up there to get anything, and I happen to stop and look at it, I just fall apart every time.” He said he even has Alyssia’s baby book. That book was bought before she was born. While Angel was pregnant, they would record the events of the day. The baby book also recorded letters they could write to their daughter. And what Avery wrote to his daughter a few years ago will forever haunt him. “I told her, ‘Don’t worry about anything because Daddy will always protect you,’” he said wearily. He stares off for several seconds and then continues. “And I can’t help but feel like I failed her,” he said. Redance lived at the time. “I opened the door and it was just like she was in shock (to see me),” he said. While Alyssia looked perplexed when the door opened, she immediately knew who it was. “Da-ddy?” the little girl asked. Alyssia ran up, held onto Avery and wouldn’t let go. ‘I LOVE YOU’ were coming off.” Avery said he didn’t know why, but he planned on asking the doctor when Alyssia went for a followup visit regarding the staff infection. He said he always went to Alyssia’s doctor visits. In addition to that bruise, her belly button was oozing. THE DROP-OFF Avery said he couldn’t remember exactly, but a day or two later he dropped Alyssia back off at Thornberry Apartments with her mother. “The second Angel opened the door, Alyssia started screaming and crying,” he said. “Matt thought it was hilarious. He said I told you she didn’t want to come back.” Like it was something comical, Avery said. Avery said when Angel opened the door, Alyssia was still in her car seat. When she reached down to get Alyssia, she didn’t want to go. “She didn’t want nothing to do with either of them,” he said. “She just threw a fit.” At the time, her behavior seemed normal. Avery believed it was separation anxiety. “Because I had been gone for so long,” he said. “Before we had been takSHE WASN’T FEELING GOOD ing her back and forth. So she knew when she saw After picking up Alyssia her mother, she was going from Thornberry Apartback to mommy.” ments on the day he got back He later called Angel from training, he said his to check on his daughter. daughter looked different. She told him Alyssia had LOOKING WEAK “She didn’t look that calmed down and was Avery would be gone for healthy,” he recalled. “But playing. She told him evtraining from September she looked how I was told erything was fine. until the week before his she was going to look “It just took her a minute daughter’s death in late given the circumstances after I left to calm down, as November. But in between (MRSA). To me it looked a typical child would,” Avthat time, he regularly like, yes, my daughter is ery said. “Again there was called his little girl and sick, but everyone has nothing for me to assume kept up with her world. been doing everything they anything was wrong.” While he was gone, could to help her.” And it wasn’t just Angel the mother of Redance’s Avery was given the and Redance the little girl children, who Avery was medicine his little girl was cried around, it was others, dating at the time, sent him taking at the time. He was too. a photograph of one of Al- also told to give her PeHe said Angel’s nephew yssia’s eyes via cell phone. dialite to ensure she was had a birthday party inside He immediately called drinking enough fluids. the mall. The party had a Angel to find out what “I did everything I was bounce house. happened. He said Angel told,” he said. “She was “Alyssia would not leave asked him how he found really hard to put to sleep my side to go to anybody,” out about it. He told her that night. She stayed up he said. “The only person that Redance had sent it to half the night crying and she calmed down with the mother of his children, screaming. Basically, she was me. If she was in my who forwarded it to Avery. wasn’t feeling good.” arms, she didn’t care. She “Obviously, I’m getting The next morning, when felt safe. Again, it felt like the tail end of it, and I’m he changed her diaper separation anxiety. She supposed to be the first in again, he noticed the bruis- thought daddy was goline,” Avery said. Angel ex- ing on her stomach was ing to leave again and she plained to him it was a bug darker. wasn’t having it.” bite. He believed her. The “At first it seemed like worst-case scenarios never everything was getting betFOLLOW-UP VISIT entered his mind. ter, but that seemed to be A couple of days later, Before Avery got back getting darker,” he said. “I Avery met Angel at the from California, he was also noticed her toenails told Alyssia had been diagnosed with MRSA, a staff infection, after a visit to a Wilson pediatrician. “The doctor said they caught it in time,” he said. “They said she is sick but she’s pulling through. They told me about the antibiotics she was on and that they were going to make her very weak and she would bruise easily and to keep her out of sunlight, typical precautions you would have been given for that type of antibiotics. She had been on other antibiotics that had a similar side effect.” Avery said he was being told about the doctor’s diagnosis while changing flights on his way back to Wilson from California. “They were saying she’s sick, but she’s getting better,” he recalled. He was also told that when he does see Alyssia that she would look weak. THE ARRIVAL HOME: ‘DA-DDY?’ When Avery’s plane landed, he immediately went to see his little girl. He missed her terribly. He couldn’t wait to hold her in his arms after their long time apart. He headed to Thornberry Apartments in Wilson where Angel and As Avery tells that story, he stops, pausing for several seconds before finishing. His eyes glare in the distance as he relived that moment of seeing his daughter for the first time in three months. He closes his eyes, puts his head down, and clasps his hands together. “I got down on my knee and I just held her,” he said about that day. “I just hugged her as close as I could.” Avery said after that moment, he was ready to take his daughter back to the house and spend time with her. It had been too long. Alyssia had started talking more clearly. It was three months of development he had missed out on. But during the time he was away, Alyssia would be able to say something special over the phone. “Da-ddy,” she told him. “I love you.” pediatrician’s office with Alyssia for her follow-up visit. His little girl appeared to be acting herself. She wanted to play. “She was getting better,” he said. “The bruise was darker than it had been to me. But it didn’t seem like she was that sensitive to it. I didn’t understand what this sickness was. I didn’t know.” During the visit, the doctor even mentioned that Alyssia seemed better. But Avery had a few concerns. “I asked him, I said the bruise looks darker, is this something we need to worry about?” he said. The doctor told him it wasn’t. Avery then asked the doctor about Alyssia’s toenails. “He looked at them,” he said. “He said the toes look healthy, the nail itself will probably fall off and regrow.” He said that it didn’t appear to be a problem. “The medicine was doing what it was supposed to,” the doctor told him. Avery said Alyssia’s belly button looked better, too. It wasn’t oozing as it did before. “The doctor said she should be good to go,” he said. ‘I COULD TASTE HER TEARS’ After the follow-up visit with the doctor that day in November, Avery walked with Angel and Alyssia to say goodbye and put his little girl in her car seat. Alyssia was going with her mother because Avery had scheduled an interview about a possible job. “I’m now trying to get employed,” he said, adding that it was less than a week after he had gotten back from that rigorous training. Avery said when he put Alyssia in the car seat she looked at him in disbelief. She thought she was coming with him. “She just started screaming,” he recalled. “I kissed her on the cheek; I could taste her tears. I told her it was OK and I would see her tomorrow.” He pauses for a moment. “My last memory of my little girl alive is her screaming,” he said, still reeling from that moment. Several hours later, he would get an unexpected phone call. He would later feel like he was living in a nightmare. “You need to get to the hospital,” the caller said. “Your daughter is not breathing.” This is the first of a twopart series. [email protected]|265-7879 ‘It’s really been hard to fully mourn for her because there’s so much anger. My whole family is turned upside down right now. None of us wants to accept she’s gone.’ Avery Kirby Alyssia’s death tears family apart By Olivia Neeley Times Staff Writer This is the second part of an interview with Avery Kirby. Go to www. wilsontimes.com to read the first story during which Kirby discusses his daughter’s death. When Avery Kirby finally reached the hospital on that November night, he was rushed to the emergency room to see his daughter. Kirby said Angel Lamm told “They were doing compreshim they were trying to get his sions,” Kirby recalls. “There daughter’s heart to start. were all these wires.” “I pretty much started falling apart there,” he recalled. “I was just hoping and praying. All I wanted was for her to pull through.” But it didn’t happen. The emergency room doctor finally told Kirby the unthinkable, “We’ve done everything we can; she has passed.” Kirby fell to his knees and grabbed his daughter’s hand. “I yelled her name,” he said. “I held her at one point. I told her I loved her. I knew she was gone. She was still warm.” Kirby said at the time he believed Alyssia’s death was due to a medical condition since she had just been seen by a See KIRBY, Page 8A Kirby: ‘There shouldn’t be any confusion’ continued from page 1A doctor for a staph infection. “Something was just missed,” he thought. THE ARRESTS About a week later, he would find out it wasn’t a medical condition at all. Someone had killed his little girl. And she suffered a horrific death. Wilson police met with Kirby at the Wilson Mall substation office. Matt Redance and Lamm were being questioned by police at the main department downtown. “Maybe it’s standard procedure with the death of an infant,” Kirby said regarding the autopsy performed and subsequent police interviews. He also wanted to be told by a professional why Alyssia died and what complications she might have had. When the autopsy results were revealed to Kirby by police that day, he was in disbelief. He told police that it had to be mistake and that Alyssia’s autopsy had to have been mistaken with another child’s. He couldn’t grasp that his daughter was killed by the hands of someone. He was furious. “My little girl went through a lot that night,” he said. “To know that she died a painful death. I mean it’s not right. It’s a 2-year-old child.” Kirby said he can’t understand how someone could become so angry to hurt a child. “There is no reason for it,” he said. “Something so sweet, so innocent and have someone like him do that. And now he gets away with it almost?” Kirby was also dumbfounded when police revealed his little girl had suffered abuse prior to that fatal night. There was scarring, they told him. ‘THERE SHOULDN’T BE ANY CONFUSION’ Kirby said there is no excuse that can be given to him that Lamm didn’t know about the abuse. Excuses he’s heard range from maybe she didn’t know to maybe she was confused, he said. “I’m sorry; with your own child there shouldn’t be any confusion,” he said. “You can’t feed me that crap and say, ‘I really didn’t know.’ I have no doubt she knew.” ‘IT ALMOST SCREAMED ADMITTANCE’ Kirby said he believed Redance had inconsistencies during the police interrogation video that was played and his testimony during last year’s trial. “He openly stated, ‘Do you want me to take the full blame so that we both don’t go down for this?’” Avery paraphrased about the video of police questioning Redance. “If you’re not guilty, why would you want to take the full blame for someone who just killed a child? It almost screamed admittance to what he did.” He said at the same time he can’t say Lamm didn’t know or have anything to do with it either. He said in one police interview, which was not shown during trial, Lamm questioned investigators. “She was telling the investigator, ‘Well, I know it couldn’t have been me, so it had to have been him, right?’” he said, paraphrasing again. Kirby said there shouldn’t be any questions when it comes to a person’s innocence. “Why would you even bother saying that it couldn’t have been me?” he said. “I would straight up say, ‘I didn’t kill this child.’ It was like she was asking the investigator.” Kirby said Redance’s statements were off kilter, too. Kirby said when investigators asked Redance if he killed Alyssia, he told them, “I couldn’t have.” Avery said if police are asking a person if they were involved in a murder, the natural reaction would be, “I didn’t do it.” Redance also told Lamm in one of the police interviews that he would take the blame, according to trial coverage. Redance believed at that time Lamm was pregnant with his baby, according to the defense. He didn’t want Lamm to be pregnant with his child inside a jail cell or be without its mother, according to trial coverage. “So that means you want your child to be with a murderer?” Kirby said. “If you had nothing to do with it, you are not going to accept guilt, especially for the murder of a child.” FORCE AND STRENGTH The medical examiner who performed Alyssia’s autopsy testified the little girl lost a considerable amount of blood within minutes of a lethal blow to her stomach. Her bowel perforated. The toddler’s cause of death was blunt force injures to the stomach and head due to non-accidental injuries, according to the autopsy. She also suffered a 5-inch skull fracture. Investigators and others testified at trial that Alyssia’s skull was smashed against a toy chest found in her closet. Her injuries were consistent Alyssia Kirby with a dent found on that toy chest, according to court testimony. “With the amount of damage that was done, to me that pointed towards him,” Kirby said about the skull fracture. “Angel was right at 100 pounds. At least that blow, I don’t think Angel could have done it. It still takes a lot of strength to fracture the skull.” He said the blow to his little girl’s stomach could have been done by Lamm, Redance or both. The medical examiner testified during the trial a fist, elbow, foot or knee could have produced the lethal stomach injury. Kirby said as jurors deliberated the fate of Redance last year, he and his family believed they had a solid case. But Superior Court Judge Milton Fitch declared a mistrial after the jury deadlocked 11 to 1 in favor of a not-guilty verdict in the case. “We were all shocked,” Kirby said. “We were expecting a guilty verdict.” ‘I CAN’T ACCEPT ANYTHING LESS’ While Kirby and his family knew about the plea arrangement last week, Kirby said they aren’t pleased with it. “It’s unreal,” he said. “It’s like we were all hoping for some closure, but it’s like everything was built up to that moment, and the bottom just fell out from under us.” While Redance will only serve a few years due to having no criminal background and because of the sentencing structure under law, he could have received probation. Redance pleaded with Fitch to give him probation so that he could be with his children. Instead, Fitch gave him active prison time. Kirby said he watched Redance’s reaction that day to the sentence. “His face dropped,” he said. “It seemed like he was Avery Kirby expresses a range of emotions as he talks about his daughter, Alyssia Kirby. Gray Whitley | Times in shock.” Kirby also said he felt no emotion from Redance last week in the courtroom. “All I could see was this guy is admitting he did something, but it’s not to what he actually did,” he said. “I have nothing but hatred for him. I have nothing but hatred for Angel. He’s not getting the time he deserves. I understand that Judge Fitch had a guideline he had to follow, but it still doesn’t seem right. And the judge, with him saying we can’t do an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth here ... well, that would be the type of justice I would want. I guess I can’t accept anything less than that because of what happened.” family through what I’m going through. I don’t want that.” FULLY CAPTURED While the loss of a child is unbearable, he clings to not only those dreams he has each week of holding his daughter tight, but to the memories they shared together. One of those memories is a video of Alyssia bouncing up and down on a stationed horsey. As she bounced, her blond hair bounced. Alyssia couldn’t stop giggling in the video. She was happy. “Yay!” she said, playing like any toddler. As Kirby shared that video during The Wilson Times interview, he smiled. The video was taken the summer before her death. “She had that much energy all day long,” Kirby said with a laugh, gazing at the video. He also shared some of his favorite pictures of them spending time together. One in particular, showed both grinning from ear to ear. The 2-year-old’s round, rosy cheeks and piercing blue eyes are fully captured. She is wearing her daddy’s black hat. ings, too — a pink camouflage hat, toys, stuffed animals, a stroller that taught her how to walk and even décor that hung on her bedroom wall. A sign that hung in Alyssia’s room reads, “My prince has already come, his name is daddy.” While he has some of his little girl’s older clothes, he also has some that still have the tags on them. “I have all that upstairs,” he said. “It’s just extremely difficult to look at. I will never get rid of it.” ‘YOU’RE NOT THINKING THE WORST’ The process of losing the little girl, who would watch trains pass by with her father, or sit on the kitchen floor and take out every piece of silverware he had LIVING WITH just rinsed off and placed in THE QUESTIONS the dishwasher, will be an Kirby said he will always uphill battle. have to live with the ques“It’s really been hard tions instead of answers to fully mourn for her on what exactly happened because there’s so much that night and the months anger,” he admitted. “My leading up to his little girl’s whole family is turned updeath. He may never know side down right now. None who is responsible. of us wants to accept she’s He said when the news gone. And then knowing broke about the young chilthe way that she passed … dren killed at Sandy Hook none of us can accept it. Elementary School in NewAnd then hoping for some town, Conn., it brought paintype of closure with the ful emotions. HOLDING ON TO MEMORIES courts, and he gets less “It hurt to see what hapthan four years.” While Kirby has plenty of pened in that school shootWhat Kirby can do, he ing,” he said. “I really felt for snapshots of happier times said, is share Alyssia’s story with his daughter, he can’t those parents.” with the community. He also bring himself to have them While the shooting in said he hopes that people out around the house yet. He will be more aware of child Newtown was horrific, he said the thing for him is they feels guilty. It’s too painful. abuse. “It breaks me down,” he knew for sure who killed “It was so under the rasaid. “I’ve broke down at their children. dar,” he said. “I couldn’t work before. That’s why “It’s a definite yes,” he tell. You’re not thinking the I try not to think about it. said. “He did it. There is worst.” They (the pictures) hurt so no question. And with this, Kirby has not spoken to or badly because she’s so hap- received a letter from Lamm they have to fight to prove. py. I wish that’s how she still since she was arrested in And he’s (Redance) going was. I would give anything to get out. He may never do December 2011. to have my child back.” it again. But he might, and He still has all her belong- [email protected]|265-7879 that’s going to put another
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