The mother and 11-year-old girl had traveled from Utah for a cheer competition at the Rio.
LAS VEGAS, Nev. — A Utah mother shot and killed her 11-year-old daughter inside a room at the Rio Hotel & Casino, then took her own life, Las Vegas police said after a weekend cheer competition trip ended in a homicide investigation on Feb. 15.
Authorities identified the pair as 34-year-old Tawnia McGeehan and her daughter, Addilyn Smith, who went by Addi. Police said the two came to Las Vegas for a cheer or dance event and were reported missing after they failed to show up Sunday. The deaths quickly shook the close-knit all-star cheer community in Utah and Las Vegas, where athletes, coaches and relatives had spent much of the day trying to find them. By the time hotel security entered the room Sunday afternoon, both were dead and homicide detectives had been called in.
Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Lt. Robert Price said officers were first sent to the Rio, 3700 W. Flamingo Road, at about 10:45 a.m. Sunday for a welfare check after family members and friends could not reach the mother and daughter. Officers and hotel security went to the room, knocked several times and called the room phone, but no one answered. With no reply and no immediate sign of a crime from outside the door, officers cleared the call after about 15 to 20 minutes, according to police and later news reports based on the briefing. Concern from relatives and friends did not stop there. Price said hotel security kept getting calls asking staff to try again. At about 2:30 p.m., security returned to the room, knocked again, called again and then entered. Inside, they found two deceased females. “There was a note left,” Price said at the evening briefing, adding that investigators believe the mother shot her daughter and then herself.
The names of the victims circulated publicly before police formally released them. A missing-person flyer shared online by family and cheer contacts identified the pair as McGeehan and Addi Smith and said they had last been seen Saturday night, around 8 p.m., at New York-New York Hotel & Casino. By Sunday night, Utah Xtreme Cheer confirmed that the child who died was one of its athletes. In a statement posted online, the gym said it was “completely heartbroken” and described Addi as deeply loved. Local and regional reports said the team had been competing in Las Vegas that weekend, with social media posts showing a “Day 1” competition on Saturday. Police said the mother and daughter had arrived in Las Vegas on Saturday for the event. Price also said investigators had not yet found evidence of arguing or fighting heard from neighboring rooms. As of the initial briefing, police said the motive remained under investigation and had not released the contents of the note recovered inside the room.
As more official information came in, the outline of the case became clearer. The Clark County Coroner’s Office later identified the dead as McGeehan, 34, and Addilyn Smith, 11, both of West Jordan, Utah. The coroner ruled McGeehan’s death a suicide caused by a gunshot wound to the head. Addilyn’s cause and manner of death were still listed as pending in local reports published after the identification update, even as police publicly described the case as a murder-suicide. That sequence is not unusual in homicide cases, where police and medical examiners work on parallel tracks and final rulings can take longer than an initial criminal investigation update. Public reporting also tied the family to Salem, Utah, after the Salem Police Department said the girl was the niece of one of its sergeants. In Utah, neighbors gathered and tied blue ribbons around trees in memory of Addi, while coaches and athletes described a wave of grief moving through a sport where families often see one another from city to city during competition season.
Court records reviewed by several Utah and Las Vegas news outlets added another layer of context, though they did not explain what happened inside the Rio room. Those reports said McGeehan had been involved in years of custody disputes with Addi’s father, Bradley Smith, including custodial interference allegations in Utah dating back to at least 2018. One case was dismissed in 2021, and records described changing custody arrangements over time. The court filings became part of the public discussion because they showed a long-running family conflict, not because investigators had tied any specific filing to the deaths in Las Vegas. That distinction remains important. Police have not publicly said the custody history caused or directly contributed to the shooting, and no charging document exists in a case where the suspected shooter is also dead. The records do, however, show that the family had spent years in legal disputes over parenting time and exchanges, making the deaths all the more wrenching for relatives already familiar with a difficult domestic history.
The procedural timeline after the discovery also drew scrutiny. News outlets in Las Vegas later obtained 911 audio and reported that relatives kept calling through the day as confusion spread about whether anyone had managed to check the room. One call included Addi’s father pleading for someone to look inside immediately. Another, made by the girl’s grandmother hours after the first welfare request, described conflicting reports within the family about whether the room had been entered. By about 8 p.m. Sunday, police held a press conference confirming the deaths and the early murder-suicide theory. No arrest was made, and none was expected. Instead, homicide detectives moved into the standard next phase for a closed-circle death investigation: processing the room, recovering physical evidence, documenting the note, tracing the firearm and waiting for coroner findings. As of March 16, police had not publicly announced any further major investigative breakthrough, and no public hearing date had been set because the case did not involve a surviving criminal defendant.
The emotional force of the story spread far beyond the hotel corridor where it ended. Coaches told Las Vegas television stations that all-star cheer is a small community and that athletes from different programs often know one another, even across states. Cabria Kirby, a Las Vegas cheer coach, said the news traveled quickly through competition circles in both Las Vegas and Atlanta, where other teams were also competing that weekend. She described the loss as especially hard on young athletes and staff members who understood Addi not as a headline but as a child they might have seen at practice, warmups or past events. That response matched the messages that followed online, where gyms from around the country posted condolences to Utah Xtreme Cheer and to Addi’s relatives. The scene in public reporting was less about the noise of a crime scene than the silence after a missed appearance, a locked hotel room and a growing chain of calls from people who knew something was wrong before they knew exactly what had happened.
Where the case stands now is largely unchanged from the days after the discovery: police have said they believe McGeehan killed Addi and then herself, the note has not been made public, and any remaining updates are most likely to come through the coroner or a police case summary if investigators release one.