Girl had been subject of custody fight, relative says

CHESAPEAKE

The grandfather of the 5-year-old girl killed in a case in which her father and stepmother were charged remembered her Saturday as a happy child with long, curly hair.

"She was just a beautiful little loving, fun child," said Robert Kimery of Zachary, La., the grandfather of Carly Sawyer. "Loved to laugh. Loved to play."

Revolving around Carly, however, was a custody battle between two families, said Kimery, whose daughter Jennifer is Carly's mother.

Carly died Thursday at Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters in Norfolk. A medical examiner determined that the cause was blunt-force trauma. Contributing factors included starvation, ligature restraint and medical neglect, police said.

Paramedics were called to her family's house in the 1400 block of Oliver Ave. in Chesapeake about 5 p.m. Wednesday for a report of an unresponsive child. On Friday evening, detectives arrested Carly's father, Joshua Sawyer, 24, and his wife, Brandy Sawyer, 21.

Joshua Sawyer was charged with second-degree murder and felony child neglect. Brandy Sawyer was charged with first-degree murder and felony child neglect.

Kimery said he and his daughter had little contact with Carly in the past 2-1/2 years after a court in Jacksonville, N.C., granted Joshua Sawyer custody of her.

Jennifer and Joshua Sawyer met and married in California when she was in the Air Force and he was in the Marines. They separated about three years ago and divorced after she was stationed in South Carolina and he was stationed in Jacksonville, with Carly, Kimery said.

Jennifer Kimery and a friend, on a visit to see Carly, took her back to Georgia where Jennifer was living. That upset Sawyer, Robert Kimery said.

She also filed a complaint of abuse against her ex-husband with Child Protective Services in North Carolina, he said.

Kimery said he and his wife were raising Carly in Louisiana to keep her away from Joshua Sawyer, until Sawyer got an order granting him temporary custody.

"They had a court order for me to return her," Kimery said. "We took her back and he stated that we would never see her again."

Kimery said he did not know Joshua and Brandy Sawyer had moved from North Carolina to Hampton Roads until his family learned Carly was in the hospital.

Three neighbors of the Sawyers on Saturday said they rarely saw them. In addition to Carly, the couple has a younger daughter and also lived with a young daughter of Brandy Sawyer's.

The Sawyers are being held without bond at the Chesapeake jail, a jail spokeswoman said.

On her Facebook page, Brandy Sawyer complained recently of being depressed and stressed. In April, she wrote that she was 10 weeks pregnant and in another post said she "just wants to run away from life."

In May, she wrote that she was feeling "really down and depressed."

She also wrote on Facebook and in a comment on the Web site of the Jacksonville Daily News about a criminal case involving her sister, Dana Leigh Browning.

Browning, 19, was arrested in November in Onslow County, N.C., on charges of concealing the birth of a child, failure to report a death and obstruction of justice. She is accused of putting her dead newborn girl in a plastic bag, then putting the body in the garbage and not notifying anyone, the Jacksonville Daily News reported. A court hearing is scheduled for June 30.

Sawyer also joined a Facebook cause called Stop Child Abuse.

In her most recent post, at 12:10 a.m. Friday, she wrote: "Carly passed away. We need prayers, holding onto nothing I feel like."

A man who answered the phone at her mother's house in North Carolina on Saturday said her mother was not home and asked that a reporter not call back.

Joshua Sawyer's father, David K. Sawyer of New York, declined to comment when reached Saturday.

Patrick Wilson, (757) 446-2957, patrick.wilson@pilotonline.com