Days after a 12-year-old girl lost her life at the bottom of a murky pool at a DeKalb County hotel, her loved ones gathered there Sunday to honor her memory.
The girl, identified as Ja-Niyah Likely to Channel 2 Action News by her family, was found underwater Wednesday evening at the Holiday Inn Express on Crescent Centre Boulevard in Tucker. She was rushed to a hospital but died a short time later.
Kingia Randall told Channel 2 that her granddaughter was a kind, fun-loving girl who was always shy at first. But once she warmed up, her contagious personality bloomed.
“She always wants to be in the mirror,” Randall said, still talking about her granddaughter in the present tense. “She always wants to talk to me when I’m having (me) time. So ‘my time’ means it’s our time for her.”
The day she died, Ja-Niyah was swimming with two other girls who were being supervised by their grandmother, Brenda Pitts, according to a police report. The woman told police that all three girls knew how to swim, so she left them while she worked with the hotel to switch rooms.
At some point, the girls went into the deep end and one began to go under, the report states. In the commotion of trying to get out of the pool, the other two didn’t realize Ja-Niyah was at the bottom.
While one of the girls ran to get help, a bystander was alerted to the emergency, according to the report. The man jumped in and had to look for the girl with his feet due to the water being so murky, officers noted in the report. He and a woman, who had also been at the pool, pulled Ja-Niyah out.
Two other bystanders started CPR as soon as the girl was brought up and continued until first responders arrived.
On Sunday, Pitts told Channel 2 she didn’t think she’d ever go back to that pool, but she wanted to be there to honor Ja-Niyah’s memory.
“For something like this to happen, it’s just totally unbearable,” Pitts said.
The pain has also been unimaginable for family and friends after losing such a free-spirited girl, who they described as a gentle spirit who loved to talk and dance.
“(We’re) just not understanding but trying to do our best,” Randall said.
DeKalb police are investigating how the girl died but have not provided any additional information.
Those who attended the gathering took bundles of pink and purple balloons to release in her memory. “We love you, Niyah,” they said as the balloons floated into the sky.
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