Rodney McWeay booking photo Fulton County Sheriff’s Office
A father in Georgia who was recently charged with murder had so badly malnourished and neglected his 4-year-old daughter that the girl had less than an ounce of water in her belly at the time of her death, according to police.
This shocking detail is one of many that emerged nearly a month after Treasure McWeay, 4, was pronounced dead at a children’s hospital in Atlanta on Dec. 11 and her father, Rodney McWeay, was subsequently arrested and charged with murder on Dec. 21, Atlanta Police reported.
McWeay is charged with 13 other counts including first and second-degree child cruelty, kidnapping, and false imprisonment, court records reviewed by Law&Crime show.
Those records also show that the alleged abuses spanned from May 2021 to December 2023. Notably, McWeay was charged with battery family violence for the very first time in June 2022.
Police records state he estranged himself from his family in recent years and that one relative said he suffered from an addiction to ketamine or “special k.”
The starvation and severe neglect experienced by Treasure McWeay also extended to two other children in the home, boys ages 3 and 4, according to a copy of an arrest report obtained by Law&Crime. One of the children was autistic, police said.
After a complaint was filed to social services about the “unsatisfactory conditions” of Rodney McWeay’s home in Atlanta, Child Services removed the children from the home in late June. But within a week, police said McWeay “traveled to Maryland” where the children’s mother, Passion Mitchell, lived.
He then “stole her car and left it parked at a train station as he brought the kids back to Georgia,” police said.
Last month, when police showed up at the hospital to assess Treasure McWeay’s siblings, they noted that the boys’ injuries included scratches to their face, chest and back, as well as contusions and bruising. They were both underweight as well. Reports of child neglect and abuse were filed against McWeay dating back to 2021, police said, including a reported incident where he allegedly knocked his son’s tooth out.
Police said the siblings were placed in the custody of their aunt while the mother came to Georgia from Maryland to get them: McWeay had stopped all contact with her, and social services workers once he allegedly kidnapped their children this summer.
A copy of the autopsy report was not immediately available to Law&Crime, but Atlanta outlet WXIA first reported Tuesday that medical examiners who assessed Treasure McWeay confirmed she weighed just 25 pounds at the time of her death.
On average, healthy children of the same age weigh roughly twice that amount.
Police reportedly observed the child’s face appearing to be malnourished and the autopsy reportedly showed only .5 ml — or less than an ounce — of fluid in her stomach.
According to data from Children’s Health Care on childhood hydration, “Toddlers need 4 cups of fluids every day, school age children need 5 cups, and older children need 7-8 cups of fluids per day.”
McWeay allegedly kept his daughter and sons contained in one room and would only let them leave it with his permission. When police responded to the home on Dec. 11 in suburban Atlanta, they found only expired eggs and milk in the home and no other food, the Georgia Gazette reported.
The Gazette also reported that police, bizarrely, did not find a shred of children’s clothing in the home, though they noted there were cameras placed throughout the property.
Some were allegedly pointed at the children’s beds.
In a police interview, McWeay allegedly said his children were not allowed outside, and “if his kids need something, he will take it to them.”
He also reportedly claimed to have left them with toys in their rooms.
Court records show McWeay is represented by a public defender and that he remains detained at the Fulton County Jail and held without bond. McWeay’s attorney did not immediately return a request for comment from Law&Crime on Wednesday.
McWeay waived his initial appearance at the Fulton County Courthouse and is slated to go before Judge Ashley Drake next week for a pre-indictment hearing on Jan. 11.
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