A mother accused of putting her 7-year-old daughter in a stroller and leaving her in a closet to die has been booked into jail on a murder charge, five days after her arrest.
Alondra Denise Hobbs, 27, had been hospitalized since her Thursday arrest, according to DeKalb County authorities. On Tuesday evening, she was released from the hospital and taken to the county jail, where she remains without bond in connection with the death of Alivia Hobbs-Jordan.
Credit: DeKalb County Sheriff's Office
Credit: DeKalb County Sheriff's Office
Alivia’s decaying body was discovered June 25 inside an abandoned apartment at the Hidden Valley complex on Misty Waters Drive south of Decatur, and police have said she could have been there for as long as four months. The circumstances of her death are shocking, and the few details made publicly available have raised serious concerns about what tragedies may have marked the girl’s too-short life.
Police have stopped short of accusing Alondra Hobbs of deliberately intending to cause the girl’s death, charging her with felony murder related to a charge of second-degree child cruelty. According to her arrest warrant, investigators believe Hobbs caused her daughter’s death by “placing her in a stroller and then rolling her into a closet before leaving the apartment with no intention of returning.”
The cause and manner of Alivia’s death are still undetermined.
Police have not said why Hobbs was hospitalized, or if she was the last known tenant of the apartment at Hidden Valley, among 272 of the metro area’s persistently dangerous complexes identified as part of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Dangerous Dwellings investigation. According to court records, she has a history of arrests related to family violence in DeKalb.
A man who answered a phone number associated with Hobbs’ husband declined to comment when reached by the AJC on Wednesday. Ryan Bozarth, the DeKalb public defender assigned to her case, also declined to comment.
Hobbs made her first court appearance in the murder case Wednesday afternoon, appearing via video in front of a Magistrate Court judge and acknowledging that she understood the charges she faces.
Tammy Blassingame, who identifies herself as Alivia’s grandmother, is raising funds to help cover funeral expenses. She called the girl’s death a “disturbing inhumane situation” and asked for prayers for the family as they process and grieve.
“Grandma’s baby girl. A true gift from heaven,” Blassingame, 57, wrote on a GoFundMe page.
Efforts to reach Blassingame, who lives in Marietta, were unsuccessful Wednesday, and it was not clear if she had been in touch with Hobbs prior to last week’s discovery.
“I’m sorry she took you away from us,” the grandmother said on the fundraising page. “You had a wonderful future ahead of you. We will do everything in our power to get you justice.”
— Staff writer Alexis Stevens contributed to this article.
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