Background: Kadaris Maddox can be seen in a framed photo during a memorial held for him (WKRN/YouTube). Inset: Cheyenne Maddox (Clarksville Police Department).
A Tennessee mother who starved her 13-year-old son until he was “just skin and bones” in a home of squalor has learned her fate.
Cheyenne Maddox was sentenced on Wednesday to 20 years in prison and is not eligible for parole, Nashville-based ABC affiliate WKRN reported. She was convicted in October 2025 of reckless homicide and aggravated child abuse in the death of Kadaris Maddox, court records reviewed by Law&Crime state.
First responders arrived at Maddox”s home on Virginia Terrace in Clarksville on the afternoon of July 6, 2022, to a chilling scene. The home was in disarray, with officers stating there was so much trash strewn about that they could not touch the floor, according to Clarksville Now. Kadaris’ bedroom was nearly empty, with only a mattress, pillow, comforter, drying rack, and electronic equipment inside. In the yard was a wheelchair that a detective described as “weathered.”
Kadaris was pronounced dead, the Clarksville Police Department said when announcing the arrest of the then-32-year-old mother the next month.
Prosecutors said Kadaris weighed 47 pounds the last time he visited a doctor, and when he died, his weight had dropped to 35 pounds. Clarksville police officer Joshua Clegg reported being the first patrol officer on the scene, saying several children led him onto the property and that when he entered the home, he found Maddox holding a kid covered in a purple comforter.
He was “just skin and bones,” Clegg testified of Kadaris, according to Clarksville Now. “He didn’t have a pulse,” Clegg continued, adding, “When I reached down and was checking on his ribs, there, he felt cold.”
Kadaris was born with cerebral palsy, per WKRN, but one of his doctors stated that he was cognitively intact and optimistic about his future.
As Law&Crime previously reported, Cheyenne Maddox was initially charged with five counts of aggravated child neglect because of the living conditions of the other kids. She was later charged with killing Kadaris.
“He died of malnutrition and he died of starvation,” Montgomery County Assistant District Attorney Mary O’Connor said in court, according to the Nashville station. “It was almost [as] if his skin was wrapped around his bones.”
A memorial was held for Kadaris in November 2022. Dawn Maddox, Cheyenne’s mother and Kadaris’ grandmother, told Clarksville Now that “there was a lot of people that loved him because he brought so much joy into the world,” per WKRN. “Just to look at him, when he smiled, his eyes, he just lit up a room. An angel was taken the day he passed away.”
Before she was sentenced, Cheyenne Maddox reportedly told the court that “I know now and wish I could go back and change so many things and trade places so that he was here with his siblings, and it was me.” She added: “It’s my negligence that led to everything, and I hold myself accountable for that.”
