Melanie Juliet Powers, 37, was killed in Macon, Georgia, on April 26, 2020, inside the Radio Drive home where she lived with her 11-year-old son and was nearing the birth of another child. Deputies found Powers in bed with a gunshot wound to the head; reporting said she was heavily pregnant and that her unborn child also died from the shooting. Investigators say the boy had been attacked in the home but escaped and ran for help.

Authorities identified Passion Latrice Watkins, Powers’ stepdaughter, as a suspect the same day. The Bibb County Sheriff’s Office reported Watkins was located in a park on Pansy Avenue, questioned, and charged; initial counts included malice murder, aggravated assault, cruelty to children, and feticide. Court coverage later described a family situation involving an on-again, off-again relationship between Powers and Laurence Watkins, identified as the father of the unborn child and the defendant.

The plea and sentencing that followed left a community with the image of a child who survived the attack and ran for help.