Disturbing way cheerleader, 11, was found dead after Utah ‘dance mom’ killed her in murder-suicide at hotel

The 11-year-old cheerleader who was shot to death by her mother in a harrowing murder-suicide was found with her face covered by a pillow that had a bullet hole through it, gruesome autopsy reports show.

Las Vegas cops discovered Addilyn Smith and her 34-year-old mother, Tawnia McGeehan, dead from gunshot wounds to the head while performing a welfare check on the Utah duo inside their hotel room at the Rio Hotel and Casino on Feb. 15.

The relatives’ lifeless bodies were found lying side-by-side on one of the beds inside the hotel room, where investigators also found a series of deranged, handwritten suicide notes left behind by the twisted mother – including one taped to a chair near the entrance that read: “Call 911 before walking in. Two dead bodies and one is an 11-year-old,” according to Clark County autopsy reports obtained by The Post.

A semi-automatic pistol was found on top of McGeehan’s chest while Smith’s body – “wearing a pajama shirt, pajama shorts, socks, and a hair tie in place holding her hair in a ponytail” – was swaddled in a blanket, investigators wrote.

Cops made the horrific discovery after McGeehan’s ex-husband, Brad Smith – with whom she had been embroiled in a bitter custody dispute over their daughter for roughly nine years, according to court records was unable to reach the duo on Feb. 14.

The father and other families with daughters on Smith’s cheer team grew even more concerned when, the following morning, the pair failed to show up at the cheerleading competition they had traveled for from their home in West Jordan, a suburb of Salt Lake City.

Toxicology results included in the newly released reports also show that the mother-daughter duo had ingested a myriad of drugs before the gunfire erupted.

Substances including quetiapine, an antipsychotic medication; gabapentin, an anticonvulsant drug used to treat seizure disorders; the anxiety drug lorazepam and the antihistamine diphenhydramine were all present in Smith’s system when she died.

McGeehan’s toxicology report listed the same drugs, as well as eszopiclone or zopiclone, a prescription sedative; the antidepressant drug known as citalopram or escitalopram; desmethyl loperamide, a chemical breakdown caused by the anti-diarrhea medication loperamide and cannabinoids.

Caffeine was also presumably detected in both toxicology reports.

However, the gunshot wounds – not the substances were listed as the cause of death for both relatives.

Another note authored by McGeehan stated that Smith had been “very medicated” leading up to her death and that “she slept cuddled with” her deranged mom.

Smith’s phone had also been intentionally left open so that the youngster’s heart-wrenching photographs and videos could be accessible, McGeehan said in the note, according to the report.

Heart-wrenchingly, Smith’s stuffed animals were found sitting on the other bed inside the hotel room, among luggage, a food bag, multiple prescription bottles bearing McGeehan’s name, “an opened package” of THC gummies, multiple broken or empty gabapentin capsules and clear cup with white residue in it.

The disgraced mother apparently committed the unthinkable acts because she was “severely depressed over breakups and on-going custody battle with her ex-husband,” the report claims.

McGeehan’s family also told investigators she had “a history of severe depression” previously treated by prescription medication, as well as “past suicidal ideations,” the docs state.

She had also been having problems with “one or two” other women with daughters in the Utah Xtreme Cheer (UXC) team – and had been receiving “mean” text messages from the other parents – in the weeks leading up to the depraved event, her mother previously claimed.

“There’s one or two ladies that she never got along with, and it got really bad a month ago,” Connie McGeehan told The Post after her relatives were found dead.

“In the last comp they had, another girl got dropped and some of the moms were saying it was because of Addi. They were texting [Tawnia] mean stuff and blaming Addi,” the grandma continued.

“Cheer was her and Addi’s life. I think something happened the day before [they died] that made her spiral.”

The Post reached out to Connie McGeehan and Brad Smith for comment, but did not immediately hear back.

Sources: NY Post