Foster mom in Arizona mourns the loss of former foster daughter
PHOENIX (CNN, KYMA/KECY) - A foster mom in Arizona is mourning the loss of her former foster daughter after she was found murdered in a park while she was several months pregnant.
Photo after photo show a five-year-old Zariah Dodd with bright eyes and a big smile.
"She loved to do cheerleading. She had pom poms, she loved to ride her bike. She wanted to do horseback riding...Anything she could experience she wanted to do," said Jennifer Jones, Dodd's former foster mother.
Jones said she was Dodd's first foster mother more than a decade ago. Dodd, her first placement after getting licensed, was brought to her because she was left to care for her infant brother alone.
"Based upon what I was told, she was going from house to house out past Apache Junction, asking for food. They believe she had been there five to seven days as the primary caregiver," Jones shared.
Jones says she was good at it, and it was hard to teach Dodd to just be a kid.
"'Stop making bottles, stop doing this.' It was like, 'I have to do this. This is my responsibility,'" Jones explained.
Now 11 years later, Dodd's life was cut short at just 16-years-old, and 36-year-old Jurrell Davis and 18-year-old Jechri James Gillett are charged in her murder.
New court documents read DNA tests prove Davis was the father of Dodd's child.
The teen and her unborn child were found dead in Marivue Park on July 5.
"Her being killed is devastating and her not getting to learn life is heartbreaking, but what destroyed me is reading she had been in 20 group homes," Jones expressed.
Jones, who just recently closed her foster care license, says the system is broken, and kids, who never asked to be part of it, are forced to navigate it.
She's calling for more oversight and accountability, and says she'll remember Dodd as a lively kindergartner, not a pregnant group home teen left for dead in a park.
"She has a name. She has a story, and that story is one of heartbreak and tremendous neglect," Jones remarked.
