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911 call in Coweta 2-year-old girl's death released

The parents now charged in her death made a frantic call on Nov. 4 - one that alluded to the child's final days alive.

A frantic 911 call is revealing more about the tragic final days of life for a 2-year-old girl whose parents are now charged in her death.

The moments between that call from those very same parents and the moment Aleigha was pronounced dead at the hospital punctuated weeks of what investigators describe as horrific abuse. 

But why did the parents even have custody of their daughter after losing custody because of drugs?

Daniel “D.J.” Lee made the call on Nov. 4--his wife Elizabeth Lee next to him tending to their daughter--from their home on Tranquil Road. Their 2-year-old girl was close to death.

Daniel: “We woke up and she’s barely breathing. She’s like, really white.”

911 operator: “OK, is she breathing at all? Do we need to start CPR?”

Daniel: “Maybe, [sounds of tearful sobbing], please hurry.”

He told the 911 operator that their daughter had been sick.

911 operator: “What’s she been sick with?”

Daniel: “I’m not sure, um, I know she burned her leg and she had a cold. She was in our room with us and she was doing – she was doing better.”

Investigators later found burns and bruises covering her body, internal injuries and evidence of blunt force trauma. Investigators said Elizabeth demonstrated on video for them how she thinks her daughter might have been accidentally burned. She said the girl’s leg somehow got caught inside the two prongs of her hairstyling iron, with the ceramic plates on those prongs reaching temperatures of up to 410 degrees.

But investigators said the burns to the girl's leg covered her entire leg, and were so severe that she lost use of her leg; they do not believe the burns were accidental.

Credit: Coweta County Sheriff's Office
Elizabeth Lynn Lee, 29, and Daniel "DJ" Lenwood Lee are charged with murder in the death of their 2-year-old daughter.

Aleigha died after she and her five siblings had moved back in with their parents. The Lees had been sentenced to a drug treatment plan at the Coweta County Family Treatment Center. 

Daniel and Elizabeth did not have custody of their six children while they were participating in the program.  They completed the program and then regained custody of their children..

The manager of the program, Jennifer Barnett, said in an e-mail to 11Alive News that she and others on staff were “devastated by this horrific tragedy” and that there was “never an issue of physical abuse of the children.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Lee successfully completed every aspect of their case plan which dissolved any dependency that existed at that time,” Barnett wrote.

Meanwhile, a long-time friend of the family, Antonio Jackson, was in disbelief.

“They take care of their kids, they love their kids and I was happy to see when they got them back,” he said. “Cause I know D.J., he’s a good father.”

He said that he hated what happened to the little girl.

“Cause she’s innocent, you feel me?” he said. “I just remember her, she was a sweet little baby, Man.”

The two parents are now in the Coweta County jail--Elizabeth charged with felony murder--as the sheriff’s office continues to investigate what led up to the death – and what ultimately caused it.

The full email from Jennifer Barnett of the Coweta County Family Treatment Court:

"Staff of the Accountability Court programs are devastated by this horrific tragedy. We are saddened by the loss of little Aleigha, who along with her siblings, was returned to her parents' home in August of 2017.

"In the underlying dependency case, there was never an issue of physical abuse of the children.

"Mr. and Mrs. Lee successfully completed every aspect of their case plan which dissolved any dependency that existed at that time, thus eliminated any jurisdiction that the court had over the family."

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