The first time Corporal Micah Hedgewood looked down at Reagan Moon’s body, he didn’t need an autopsy to tell him what had happened. The two-year-old was so thin that her skin hung loose, wrinkled and dry like old leather. She was dirty, as if she hadn’t been bathed in days. She had so little muscle mass that it was hard to even guess when she had died.
Reagan was born on August 11, 2015, in Georgia. She was a giggly, energetic little girl who loved rainbows and bright colors. She smiled constantly, danced whenever she heard music, and tried to get anyone nearby to play with her. One of her favorite tricks was to stand on a box and pretend she was a preacher.
She had a few birth defects—one kidney, one ovary, half a uterus, a leg slightly shorter than the other, an extra nail on her thumb—but none of them were life-threatening. They could all be corrected or managed as she grew. Reagan’s mother, Devon Moon, had been hesitant about keeping the pregnancy. Years earlier, she had handed her older daughter over to her own mother, Deborah, and she often made it clear she didn’t like overweight children.
Before long, Devon gave Reagan to another family member, and Reagan stayed there for just under two years. That arrangement was casual—no paperwork, no court. But it fell apart when the relative grew resentful. She didn’t think it was her job to raise someone else’s daughter while the mother was free to do it herself.
Frustrated, she returned Reagan to Devon on the same day she called the Department of Family and Child Services. She was worried Devon either couldn’t or wouldn’t care for the child. A caseworker responded, looked things over, and concluded Reagan wasn’t in immediate danger. Reagan stayed with her mother.
The change was fast. She became small and frail, and her extended family noticed right away. One of her aunts said that whenever Reagan ate, her stomach swelled and bloated. In April 2017, Devon’s mother, Deborah, took Reagan to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Egleston Hospital.
Reagan was underweight—only 20 pounds. A follow-up visit in July showed no improvement. Worried for the child’s safety, Deborah called DFCS. So did one of Devon’s sisters.
Devon found out. She was furious. She barred her mother and her sister from ever seeing Reagan. That changed in early October 2017, when Devon needed a babysitter.
Another sitter had called out at the last minute, so she asked Deborah to watch Reagan. Reagan hadn’t gained any weight since Deborah had last seen her. If anything, she was smaller. Deborah rushed her to the hospital, and the two-year-old was treated for malnourishment.
DFCS stepped in again. A caseworker visited Reagan in her hospital room and wrote in a report: “The child’s belly is very small, and she looks like a child on Feed the Children. ” Feed the Children is a nonprofit that helps hungry kids. But despite seeing this with their own eyes, DFCS did nothing except return Reagan to Devon’s care.
The extended family kept calling. Four calls in one month came from Deborah alone. After the final call, she was told arrangements were made to monitor Reagan’s care. A pediatric nutritionist was assigned to craft Reagan’s diet and visit once a week to make sure Devon was following it.
DFCS also noted that Devon might be an unreliable caregiver—she’d told a caseworker she felt so overwhelmed taking care of Reagan that she quit school. But the visits DFCS claimed to make weren’t as thorough as they sounded. Some were nothing more than a text message exchange. Devon was asked to send a picture of Reagan, and the conversation mostly ended there.
One caseworker noted during an in-person visit that Reagan looked small for her age, but never followed up. Another document was filed with inconsistent notes, likely reducing Reagan’s chances of receiving help. After the final call in October 2017, Devon cut off all contact with her family. They went a full year without seeing Reagan.
Deborah called DFCS multiple times, asking to become Reagan’s caregiver, asking them to take her concerns seriously, asking even just to see the child. They wouldn’t budge. Devon moved with Reagan into a two-bedroom apartment in Lilburn, Georgia. They only lived there for a few months.
Reagan’s bedroom was completely unfurnished. Devon’s room had furniture, clothes, and a big television. Devon got a job at a local adult-only club. It’s been speculated she worked there as a dancer, but that was never confirmed.
What is confirmed is that she spent up to 12 hours at work every night. Reagan was left alone during those shifts. Locked in her small bedroom closet, without food, without water, without any clean way to relieve herself, for 12 hours at a time. Devon still used the closet for storage, which made the space even smaller.
It was as if she had thrown Reagan in there like an object she was quickly clearing off the floor. Reagan died from starvation on July 24, 2018—about two weeks shy of her third birthday. Devon found her. She moved her body to the couch.
She called 911 at 3:29 in the afternoon, reporting that Reagan was unresponsive and cold to the touch. The operator told Devon to put Reagan on the floor and perform CPR until help arrived. A neighbor heard screaming and looked outside. He told local news, “It’s undescribable when you’re talking about a child.
Some woman just ran out the door screaming, you know, ‘They’re dead. They’re dead. ‘” That screaming woman was Devon Moon, now facing cruelty to children and felony murder charges after Gwinnett County police found her nearly three-year-old daughter dead in her apartment. At first, Devon told officers Reagan had been born with medical issues that prevented her from gaining weight.
She also brought up her mother and sister, explaining how they had cared for Reagan in the past. This left the officers with the false impression that Reagan was often under adult supervision while Devon worked. Her story fell apart during the investigation. When Corporal Hedgewood finally examined Reagan’s body, he suspected neglect immediately.
Reagan was extremely thin and dirty. At the apartment, investigators found human waste, notably inside the bedroom closet. They determined that Reagan must have died there—and that Devon had moved her body to cover her tracks. A medical examiner believed the couch would have been wet from fluids released after death if Reagan had truly died while sleeping on it.
Devon also lied about taking out the garbage. The kitchen trash can was empty, and she did remove something from the apartment, but nothing in the dumpster matched. Security footage showed Devon leaving the apartment, returning about 15 minutes later, and then police pulling in. Corporal Hedgewood said it was very clear she couldn’t have thrown anything away in the dumpster during the time she claimed.
An autopsy revealed how badly Reagan had been neglected. She weighed only 14 pounds. Her cause of death was officially starvation and dehydration from neglect. Corporal Hedgewood asked Devon to come in for another interview.
He asked about Reagan’s diet. Devon insisted she’d been feeding her daughter. She said the day before she called 911, Reagan had eaten two packets of instant grits in the morning and 12 chicken nuggets from McDonald’s in the afternoon. Those were enormous portions for a child Reagan’s age—and they didn’t match her frail body at all.
Devon was arrested and booked into the Gwinnett County Detention Center two days later, on July 26. When police seized her cell phone records, they found she had made multiple calls to her ex around 2:30 p. m. on the day she called 911.
When she couldn’t get through, she left her apartment for about 15 minutes. She called the police after she returned. Reagan’s family was devastated. Her grandmother, Deborah, was one of the first to speak to the press.
She said, “I’m just so heartbroken because it didn’t have to happen this way. We took her to Egleston because she was just skin and bone. The hospital said she weighs the same 20 lbs that she weighed when you brought her here in April. ” Deborah recalled the moment Devon confronted her: “She said to me, ‘You called DFCS on me, didn’t you?
’ I said I did. I said only because I cared about you, cared about the baby. That’s the only reason. She said, ‘You, I hate you.
I hate you. You’ve lost a daughter and a granddaughter. ’ And I have. I have.
”
One of Reagan’s aunts set up a GoFundMe to cover funeral costs and support Reagan’s older sister. She wrote about Reagan, “a petite ball of energy with a smile so bright it could light up the entire universe,” and about a system designed to protect children that had failed her completely. DFCS responded publicly more than three weeks after Reagan’s death. They released a report admitting they saw warning signs and ignored them.
Deputy Director of Child Welfare Keith Bostic gave a press conference, apologizing for the department’s failures and promising changes. He said caseworkers were trained in mental health, but “not so much in physical health. ” He added, “It was so horrific when I reviewed this case that it just kind of highlights the need for us to continue our efforts around prevention. ”
Reagan’s family wasn’t satisfied.
They wanted the department held accountable and considered filing a lawsuit. They also wanted to create a program to protect children like Reagan. The individual caseworkers who had handled Reagan’s file were all gone. They quit on their own after the last welfare call before Reagan’s death.
Georgia DFCS said they were trying to track them down for interviews, but nothing was ever made public about them. And despite everything, Keith Bostic left Georgia DFCS without trouble. A year after Reagan’s death, he became the division director for family and children services in Santa Cruz County, California. Currently, he is the deputy director for human services in Broward County, Florida.
Reagan’s funeral was held on August 4, 2018, at the Salem Missionary Baptist Church. Because she loved rainbows and bright colors, her family asked everyone to wear vibrant, colorful attire instead of black. Her aunt said it was a celebration of Reagan’s life and joy. Reagan always smiled.
She liked posing for the camera. She would have been dancing to the music and trying to play. She liked to stand on boxes and preach a little bit. Her grandmother said she had seen rainbows in the Georgia sky and would be reminded of Reagan.
She would stand and talk to the rainbow as if Reagan was listening, and when she finished, the rainbow would fade. Devon was held without bond, though no one seemed willing to pay it anyway. Corporal Hedgewood testified during the pre-trial hearing, detailing his findings. The testimony was filmed and posted on Facebook by a local news channel.
The comments were full of grief and anger. Two stood out: “Used to work with Devon at Walgreens, and she was not a good person at all. Terrible spirit and attitude. ” And another: “I grew up with her.
She was sweet. I mean, super sweet. We went to church together, sang in the choir, went to summer camp. ”
Devon’s trial was delayed by an unrelated countywide scandal.
Judge Katherine Schrader, who was assigned to many upcoming cases including Devon’s, was suspended from her position and made a defendant. She believed the district attorney had hacked into her work computer. Rather than going to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, she turned to a private detective, who brought in a former deputy sheriff and computer security expert. They installed surveillance software on her work computer and collected data remotely, sending it to a forensic analyst—a disgraced figure known for being a co-founder of Dragon Con and for numerous charges involving child sexual abuse material.
A motion was filed questioning Judge Schrader’s impartiality, arguing she had engaged in a pattern of conduct that created a clear appearance of bias. She was removed from her assigned criminal cases and then suspended completely. One of the trials she was meant to preside over involved Devon Moon. People drew comparisons between Reagan’s case and that of another Georgia child, Ammani Moss.
Ammani was starved to death by her father and stepmother in 2013, at just 10 years old. Her grandmother had called DFCS multiple times, terrified for her safety, but they ignored her. Both girls’ grandparents were willing and ready to become their caregivers. If DFCS had done its job, Reagan and Ammani would likely still be alive today.
In February 2023, Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff launched an investigation into DFCS and found that children in their care weren’t being treated with any sense of dignity or decency. Between 2018 and 2022, more than 1,700 Georgia children in state care were reported missing. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children found nearly 2,500 instances of foster children being reported missing over a five-year span—a missing foster child every day in Georgia. In October, Ossoff presided over the first of four human rights hearings against DFCS.
In April 2024, the Senate Judiciary Committee released a case study detailing the findings: mismanagement at DFCS was a key contributor to child deaths and serious injuries, and the department consistently failed to meet children’s physical and mental health needs. The district attorney who had handled the early phase of Devon’s case lost his reelection bid in 2020. His successor faced a massive backlog of unresolved cases, many of them homicides, left behind by his predecessor’s staff, many of whom resigned after the election. Loved ones of homicide victims thanked her for finally getting their cases to trial.
But as of this recording, Devon Moon has still not gone to trial. She remains innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, and there are no updates on her case as of September 2025. Reagan’s father’s identity is still unknown to the public. He hasn’t spoken to the press or to the courts about his daughter.
Her family hasn’t spoken about him either. Mainstream media stopped covering Reagan’s death after 2020. A Facebook group posted about her case in August, spreading awareness to a new audience. Reagan should be 10 years old today.
She could have been making friends in school, spending time with her older sister, joining activities, growing up surrounded by people who loved her. Instead, she was robbed of her life. And her absence leaves a hole that will never be filled.
