Parents fought for custody of Chesapeake girl who died

CHESAPEAKE

The father and stepmother accused of killing their 5-year-old daughter stood before a judge for the first time Monday morning.

Joshua Sawyer, 24, and Brandy Sawyer, 21, were arraigned in Chesapeake Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court at 8:30 a.m. The pair are being held without bond but have bond hearings scheduled later this week.

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

Court records revealed further details Monday about a custody dispute between Joshua Sawyer and his ex-wife, Jennifer Kimery, that preceded Carly's death on Thursday. The fight started when Carly was 2 years old and involved at least one child neglect complaint against the girl's mother.

Joshua Sawyer and Jennifer Kimery were married Nov. 27, 2003, court records show. They were both 19. Carly was born about two months later, on Jan. 24, 2004.

Sawyer, who was a Marine corporal, was in Iraq when he learned of a October 2005 social services investigation stemming from a child neglect complaint against Kimery, according to a custody complaint he filed in Onslow County, N.C.

Records of the complaint were not available - a spokeswoman for the North Carolina Division of Social Services would not comment on whether the agency had any cases involving Carly's family.

Kimery, who was in the Air Force, said in an interview that a complaint was filed by a supervisor who, while helping Kimery move, noticed a knife in a roommate's bathroom and adult videos in her bedroom - areas Carly didn't have access to, Kimery said.

The Onslow County Department of Social Services terminated its investigation after Sawyer's parents got involved in Carly's care, according to the custody complaint.

Problems continued after Sawyer got back from Iraq in March 2006.

After his return, Kimery said, the marriage went downhill. She decided to leave her home for Georgia, where she had friends. She left Carly with Sawyer, she said, because she would be sleeping on a couch and didn't want to bring her child down until she got settled.

Sawyer's custody complaint says Kimery abandoned the family, leaving home for at least a week in March and leaving for Georgia to live with her boyfriend, the complaint alleges.

The problems peaked in July 2006, when Sawyer accused Kimery of returning to North Carolina and using "subterfuge" to gain control of Carly and take the girl to her parents' home in Louisiana, according to the complaint.

Kimery said Monday that she took Carly back to her family because she believed her daughter wasn't being cared for properly and feared for her safety. She says she filed a complaint of abuse against Sawyer with Child Protective Services in North Carolina.

Sawyer filed the custody complaint days after Kimery took Carly. A judge granted him temporary custody that year and ordered Kimery to return the child.

Joshua Sawyer and Jennifer Kimery were divorced on June 13, 2007 - when Carly was 3 years old.

Kimery said this week that she wishes people had listened when she said she was concerned for Carly's safety.

"Somebody could have stopped this happening," she said. "They didn't listen. They let my Carly down."

Sawyer, a data network specialist, left the Marine Corps in June 2008, military records show. He was last stationed at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. He was awarded several medals, including the Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal and Iraq Campaign Medal.

Carly died Thursday at Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters in Norfolk. The cause of her death was blunt-force trauma; contributing factors include starvation, ligature restraint, and medical neglect, police said.

Social services officials in Chesapeake did not comment on whether they had been involved with Carly's family before her death. Chesapeake Social Services officials get calls or letters from social service agencies in other states - but only if child abuse or neglect cases are founded or substantiated and only if the agency knows that a family has moved.

Joshua and Brandy Sawyer's neighbors on Oliver Avenue said they didn't know much about the new family that had moved in a few months ago.

They said the couple never talked to anyone, although when they first moved in, Carly and the family's two other children would play outside, riding bikes in the driveway, said Tamara Givens, who lives a few doors down.

Carly would usually wave.

But Givens said she hadn't seen the children outside in a while, and she hadn't met Joshua or Brandy Sawyer in the five or six months they lived there.

"The first time I saw her was when she was sitting in back of the police car," Givens said.

Pilot writer Kate Wiltrout contributed to this report.

Alicia Wittmeyer, (757) 222-5216, alicia.wittmeyer@pilotonline.com

Mike Saewitz, (757) 222-5207, mike.saewitz@pilotonline.com