Addison Lanham with her mother, Shanna

Here we have a precious 2 year old child, not old enough to harm a fly living with her mother and her mother’s boyfriend in a room at the America’s Best Hotel in North Carolina.  Addison Lanham was given a nickname “Little Miss Beautiful” by the people that knew her.

For a child that seemed to be so full of life, it is so sad to see her life ended so tragically. Her little swollen body was rushed to the Gaston Memorial Hospital on July 21 where she later died from an infection in her blood stream called sepsis.

According to reports the night that Addison died, her mother, Shanna Lanham had gone to work but she left her daughter with her boyfriend, Jason Wells. Later that night Wells called Shanna and told her that something was wrong with Addison so she went back to the hotel in Bessemer and they called 911. Addison wasn’t breathing right and they couldn’t wake her up. Her little face was swollen and covered in boils. Shanna begged the 911 operator to please send someone in a hurry.

Shanna admitted to the 911 operator that her daughter had been sick but she had been attempting to treat her herself. She said the baby had hurt her private parts and “Split herself” when she was getting out of the bathtub. The child had boils on her face that her mother tried treating by popping the boils and then cleaning them out with peroxide.

A medical examiner said that poor little Addison had suffered a broken leg at least one to three weeks before she died and it had never been treated. Can you imagine the pain this little baby was in? The baby had MRSA (a staph infection) which had entered into her bloodstream which is what killed her.

Shanna Lanham

The part that gets me other than the fact that this innocent child was not taken care of by her mother is that reports are that the Department of Social Services were supposedly investigating Shanna Lanham and her daughter since May or June of this year but never removed the child from her mother’s care.

Now all we are hearing is about how many reports they get and how they are so unemployed. I don’t want to hear that, if the government doesn’t want to give them more money then let people that volunteer work for them. I still think our government needs to pay more attention to the children in this country more. I understand other countries have their problems and I honestly hate hearing that but we need to take care of our own first. Give Social Services a larger budget so they will have the manpower to tend to all the reported cases. Every time a report comes in they need to be investigated, even if it turns out to be a false alarm.

Jason Wells

Five days after little Addison died, her mother and her mother’s boyfriend have been arrested and both have been charged with involuntary manslaughter, felony child abuse and contributing to the delinquency of a child. They are both facing a possibility of 68 to 92 years in prison if they are found guilty. Wells has been placed under a $1.85 million bond and Lanham‘s bond has been set at $1.1 million.

How many more children will have to suffer abuse or as in this case death, before our government steps in and helps? It breaks my heart that yet another baby died from neglect and abuse. It could have been prevented. I blamed the Department of Social Services as much as I do the mother and boyfriend for the death of this child.

Please help me by praying with me that something will be done to help protect the innocent children more. It has gotten totally out of hand and people need to stop using their children as a punching bag or as a way to take their anger out on from something else that made them mad. A little child can’t be blamed for anything. How can a two year old baby be blamed for anything? I just don’t understand it.

May God be with these children. I know Addison is no longer in pain now, bless her little heart. She is being well taken care of now, Thank God!

Jan Barrett