Emani Moss weighed only 32 pounds when she died, authorities said.
The 10-year-old Gwinnett County girl’s father and stepmother were indicted for murder Wednesday, the same day her completed autopsy results confirmed that she had been starved to death.
There were no signs that she had been beaten, authorities said.
“This is the worst investigation I’ve been involved in with regards to the condition of the child that did not have trauma,” Gwinnett County Medical Examiner’s Investigator Eddie Reeves told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Emani's burned body was found in a Dumpster outside the apartment where she lived with her father Eman Moss and stepmother Tiffany Moss in early November.
The medical examiner’s official finding was that she died of starvation and neglect before her body was burned, authorities said.
Emani’s weight, Reeves said, put her “at the very bottom” of the weight percentile for her age.
It’s unclear how long she’d been dead before her father and stepmother allegedly tried to burn her body, but the 4-foot-2 Emani was in no condition to fend for herself in her final hours, said Reeves, who has spent 11 years as a forensics investigator in Gwinnett.
“Because she was so emaciated,” he said, “her muscle tone was nothing.”
A Gwinnett grand jury on Wednesday indicted Eman and Tiffany Moss on charges of malice murder, concealing a death, two counts each of felony murder and two counts each of first-degree child cruelty.
A judge last week denied bond to Emani's father and stepmother. Court records show a history of cruelty and abuse accusations dating to when Emani was an infant. Tiffany Moss was previously arrested on cruelty charges involving Emani.
And the Georgia Division of Family and Children's Services saw upheaval after a revelation that the agency had previously investigated allegations of Emani's abuse without removing her from the home.
Her younger brother and sister are now in DFCS custody.
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