The mother of a 2-year-old Sandy Springs girl who was allegedly beaten to death while in the care of her babysitter said she doesn’t believe her daughter’s death happened spontaneously.
On the “Dr. Phil” show on Tuesday, Kristin Fridley Gannt expressed no doubt when telling television personality Phil McGraw that the death of her daughter, Fallon, was premeditated.
“There’s nothing Fallon could have done that would have upset this woman so much to where she would beat my daughter to death,” she said.
Fallon was killed Dec. 10 while in the care of her babysitter at a Sandy Springs apartment, according to police. Kirstie Hannah Flood, 29, was arrested two days later and charged with malice murder after police accused her of beating Fallon to death.
The toddler was found unresponsive at the woman’s apartment on Monterey Parkway. She was rushed to a Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta location, where she was pronounced dead.
Fridley told McGraw that she and Flood had been close friends for about five years. She said she “never had any reason to not trust her.”
“This is something we do daily, is go back and back,” Fridley said on the show. “‘What did I miss? What did I not see?’ And at the end of the day, truly, there was not any red flags. I think that’s the scariest part.”
Flood had been Fallon’s full-time babysitter since August, when the child’s daycare closed permanently due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Fridley said her daughter never seemed afraid of going to Flood’s home and sometimes didn’t want to leave once she was there. She would never come home upset, hungry or “not herself,” her mother said.
Fridley said on the day Fallon was killed, Flood sent her a text message asking if the child could spend the night. She told McGraw that later that day when she asked how Fallon was doing, Flood was not quick to reply. That night, when Fridley asked to speak to Fallon on a Facetime call, Flood held the phone more than a yard away from the child and abruptly hung up when the girl’s parents grew concerned that she wasn’t responding.
When Fridley got a call from a police officer asking her to meet him at a hospital, she knew something was wrong. She and her husband, Cameron Gantt, were distraught when a doctor told them the toddler could not be saved, the couple said.
“I’m just on my knees begging, begging for God to take the heart from my chest and put it into hers,” Gantt said. “Don’t take Fallon from her mama.”
Flood did not accompany the family to the hospital, Fridley told McGraw.
According to an arrest warrant obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Flood initially told police the toddler hit her head on a slide at a park and that she put her to bed because she was acting strangely. She didn’t wake up.
Doctors, however, determined the injuries were not consistent with that account, and an autopsy was ordered.
It showed the girl had “suffered severe injuries that resulted in her death during her care by the suspect,” Sandy Springs police said. That included a massive skull fracture and lacerations to the liver, spleen and colon, according to the warrant.
Investigators looked at Flood’s phone and found internet searches for “what type of people enjoy abusing other people’s children” and “what does it mean to have a sudden urge to beat a child that’s not yours,” according to the warrant.
“She made these searches at 10 a.m. that day, and texted me at 1:30 asking if Fallon was going to spend the night,” Fridley told McGraw. “That absolutely tells me that this was premeditated.”
Fridley said it seems to her that Flood had demons and “chose to act on them.” She told McGraw she wishes that any issues had been addressed before her child was killed.
“If you are Googling these types of things and you have children or you have someone else’s child, that is the time you pick up the phone and say, ‘You have to come get her. My mental health is not OK. I’m not OK. Come get your daughter.’ And I would have 100%, no questions asked, dropped everything and went and got her,” Fridley said.
Flood faces two counts of felony murder and a single count each of malice murder, aggravated battery and cruelty to children in the first degree.
“I can’t believe this monster was hiding inside of her,” Fridley said. “She took everything from me. She took my sunshine. My baby. My world. She took my life.”
Her live-in boyfriend, Jeffrey Scott Meyers, was arrested Jan. 6 after investigators said he was present at the apartment while the abuse was happening and did not intervene. He is charged with second-degree murder and cruelty to children.
Both Flood and Meyers are being held in the Fulton County Jail without bond.
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