It’s a few minutes before 11:00 but I’m going to go ahead and get started.
First,
I want to thank everyone for being here.
You being here,
not just the media, but the community
helps us ensure
that Athena strands name is never forgotten.
Maitland Gandy is Athena strands mother.
She has some prepared remarks that she’s going to give this morning
and
I don’t want to delay that.
I’m going to go ahead and invite Maitland to come up
and share her remarks with you.
Good morning,
and thank you all for being here.
My name is Maitland.
And I’m a mommy of Athena Presley, Monroe. Strand.
On November 30th, a FedEx delivery man. Drove on to Athena’s,
father’s property
to deliver a package of what was supposed to be a Christmas present
for our daughter.
This is the package
and it’s the first time I’m seeing it.
The packages containing you can be anything Barbies.
Athena
was robbed of the opportunity to grow up to be anything.
She wanted to be.
In this present ordered out of innocence and love is one. She will never
receive
Athena’s. Favorite holiday was Christmas
as it is for many children everywhere.
The Joy Athena gave her family
and the joy. She felt on Christmas is something we will never fill with her again.
That
delivery driver admitting to kidnapping and killing my innocent
free-spirited seven-year-old daughter on Friday. December 2nd.
At
the time of Athena’s, abduction,
she was staying with her step mother and father in Paradise, Texas. Doing
what
what kids do
playing within the bounds of her father’s property on the same land.
He grew up
and played on the same land that for 20 or more years. He
has siblings and all of his friends had been safe.
I was supposed to bring Athena back home
to Oklahoma after Christmas break.
Now, instead of Tina will be cremated.
She will come home in an urn
because I’m not even
I’m not anywhere close to being ready to let my baby go.
I’m sorry.
I will never see her bright blue eyes
or her honoree smile. Again,
I will never be able to hear her. Say I love you. Mommy.
I will never be able to do her hair again
or to hold her while she sleeps.
I was robbed of watching her grow up
by a man that everyone was supposed to be able to trust
to do. Just one simple task.
Deliver a Christmas present
and leave.
Tomorrow will be the last time I get to see my baby
After Tomorrow,
When The Silence sets in
Athena’s family,
including her three young sisters,
will start the Journey
of all of the first without her.
Her little sisters 3rd birthday.
Then my 27th birthday
or Christmas Eve tradition.
The first time in seven years, of not hearing, and seeing
the excitement of Athena opening gifts from CNN Sissy.
I asked everyone to hold your little just a little tighter for me.
I want to take a moment to thank the community for the outpouring of love
and support
from the moment Athena went missing.
This community flew into action
and they have not stopped.
I have felt your prayers, I have read your messages and your letters
and
I see your pink
everywhere.
There are no words to express how thankful I am
for the First Responders,
law enforcement and responding agencies.
Volunteers churches. Businesses
and all those.
I may have felt to list.
I’m also grateful to the media for helping keeping
helping
to keep Athena story alive.
I want everyone to know Athena.
She was an amazing little girl who loved dancing, singing and all
animals.
Dogs cats horses, lizards, and chinchillas.
She also loves school
and all of her friends in the first grade who are now also
struggling with her senseless murder.
Athena also love flowers,
but she was also not afraid to get down in the mud with the boys.
She was her father’s daughter.
I noted that the theme is death will not be in vain.
I will spend the rest of my life fighting for her, so that no other family will
endure
such unbearable pain and grief,
That the monster attempted,
a monster attempted to take it being as voice,
but we are her voice.
Screening and hiring policies must be put into place. So that monsters
weren’t delivery uniforms. Don’t show up on our children’s doorsteps
Please
help.
Keep it thin as light shining.
Thank you.
Thank you. Once again for being here,
I know you have a lot of questions.
My goal today is to
first thank the community for all the efforts that were made to look
for Athena
to law enforcement to the district, attorney’s office who have
already
been in communication with us and have offered their support.
And cooperation as we move forward,
thank you for being here to keep Athena’s
name alive.
And to remember help remember her for who she is.
I’m going to set out some
parameters for the questions that I’ll be accepting
understanding that we are still in the investigation phase. I’m
not going to comment on
alleged facts or possible, underlying facts. But I’m
happy to answer
general questions about where we are what we’re doing,
what we hope to do
moving forward.
So with that, I’ll open it up to questions.
We’re investigating not just what FedEx has
responsibilities might have been but anyone else who was involved
in the decisions that were made that led to this tragic
loss
by doing a thorough investigation, cooperating with law enforcement,
we will uncover every person who is responsible through their
actions or inactions for the tragedy that happened.
And
go here and then come here.
I’m not going to
at this point
include or
exclude anyone from being the possible
Target of a lawsuit. The ultimate goal here
is to ensure that no parent or grandparent or family
member feels the loss
that Maitland’s going through right now, that’s our ultimate goal.
So wherever that investigation takes us and whoever we find responsible
are people that are going to have to face a reckoning.
Yes sir.
Well
we’ve been working around the clock since
Maitland hired us on
essentially Sunday night. Monday morning,
I have an investigator here. He’s here, present with us today. He’s
from Wise County
and we’re essentially
leaving no stone unturned in
looking at
all the decisions that had to have happened.
For this tragedy occurred,
I’m asking the community
to contact us
if they have
pieces of information that might be helpful. So, for example,
if there’s someone that worked at FedEx or with this contracting
company,
we would love to hear from you.
If you’re someone, who knows the defendant,
we would love to hear from you
on our website,
personal
on our website, which is versus injury.com.
We have a page, which is forward slash answers for
Athena
and you can also reach us at
answers for Athena
at
versus injury.com
with any leads that you might have
the main number to our Law. Firm is 817, 203
2220
and we are encouraging anyone who might have information
even if it is something
that you might think is minor, you receive the package that day from FedEx
and you’re in neighboring, you believed it was the same person
who dropped off a package, we want to hear from you, there’s no
lead. That’s too small for us to look into
FedEx did reach out of course to offer their condolences.
It
was
a pretty preliminary conversation. Any further conversation
of course will be through our office.
I know you mentioned working with something.
We’ve
already talked to a number of different individuals.
Everyone has been.
First of all thrilled, that my Law Firm is here because they know what we
bring to the table. And what we will bring to bear for the
parties who are involved with this.
All of them have offered their support, including the District, Attorney’s Office,
including the Sheriff’s Office.
I’ve talked to a federal agent who is part of the investigation
so we will be working with and have experience working with everyone
who was involved with this investigation and we are
absolutely thankful for the work that they’ve done so far.
I’m not at all surprised.
That’s what this community demands,
you know, when you have
the loss of a young child
of Innocence,
this community is not going to accept anything less than that. So
I
wholeheartedly agree with the decision that’s being made
and I’m sure the district attorney was involved with that. It’s a huge commitment
to say that you’re seeking the death penalty.
It’s not a small undertaking. So
they are doing what this
community
wants
and
it is undoubtedly I appreciated by everyone in this community and
certainly
Maitland in the family.
So the District Attorney’s office has been communicating through
us and has reached out. They are also being very
mindful
that Maitland is in the middle of a Mourning period. So
they are
doing everything that they can to both be respectful but also
to
respect both the wishes of the family as well as the community.
That
was dropped off and
these Barbies were intended for Athena.
This was going to be part of her Christmas present.
That’s the very box that was dropped off at the doorstep.
And as you ask yourself, is that a piece of evidence? I can certainly
You this is not a fingerprint case.
Okay. This is not a case where
law enforcement needs that box to prove their case or
pull anything from it.
Well, I’m not going to comment on
what I
understand the facts to be or what the alleged facts might be, I can tell you,
this is the package.
That was delivered to the residence
on the date that she was.
Abducted.
Maitland’s, goal and that
in my goal, ultimately
is to effect change. We don’t want another family
to feel this kind of loss.
So we’re going to look for
anyone who might be responsible.
We’re not in a rush.
Okay.
As we investigate, we put people that we think might
be responsible on notice and those letters have already started.
Going out
to say things like you have to preserve the evidence related
to this investigation,
but we are not in a rush to file a lawsuit.
We want a thorough investigation to be completed. We are part
of that investigation, we conduct our own independent investigation
and
ultimately wherever that investigation leads us
if it leads us to
see
filing a lawsuit to effect the change that we hope to effect
and that’s what we’re going to do.
We have sent out three notices
so far.
I’d rather not just yet.
Our investigation continues, we have all the list
of witnesses, we hope to speak to.
We have
a
thorough plan for our investigation moving forward, but I anticipate
particularly after this press conference that we’re going to get more leads
and we’re going to want to follow up on all of those leads to complete again.
A very thorough investigation.
Will also be working closely with law enforcement
and certainly the District Attorney’s office to make sure
we have everything that we need to know. And of course it’s a two-way street
anything we learned that might be
beneficial to them. We’re certainly going to share with them.
Other questions.
Certainly
Benson varghese.
First name is be enso, n,
last name is
VAR. G h-- e SE
Thank you.