A trip meant to celebrate a birthday ended in unspeakable tragedy for a Georgia family when a little girl never arrived at her grandfather’s celebration. Instead, she was found dead—killed by the man who should have protected her—leaving her loved ones grappling with the kind of grief words can’t contain.
On May 28, 2025, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation released a statement confirming that it had joined the Brooklet Police Department in investigating a heartbreaking double death in Bulloch County. The incident had unfolded the previous evening.
Around 7:45 p.m. on May 27, a call came in reporting an unresponsive child locked inside a car parked at Brooklet City Park. Officers from both the Brooklet Police Department and the Bulloch County Sheriff’s Office responded immediately. What they found was devastating
Inside the car, they discovered a child in the backseat, lifeless, with an apparent gunshot wound. In the front seat was a man, also deceased from what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound. A handgun was found resting on his lap. Authorities later identified the man as 37-year-old James Lee Mayo and the child as his nine-year-old daughter, Emily Grace Mayo.
Both bodies were transported to the GBI Medical Examiner’s Office in Pooler for autopsies. But the investigation didn’t end with the forensics—it triggered a wave of grief, disbelief, and public mourning.