'I'm not going to stop fighting,' says mother of teen found dead

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — It has been four months since the body of a teenage girl was found behind a home in east Charlotte,

Frenetta Hammonds knew when her daughter Shania didn't answer her phone or call her back, on Feb. 8, that something was wrong.

“I started calling her at 6 o'clock that morning. She never answered,” Hammonds said.

Frenetta Hammonds

Later that night, Hammonds called police to report Shania missing, and Shania's friend called the next morning with the news no mother wants to hear.

“She called me back to tell me my daughter was dead, and at that point, I just lost it,” Hammonds said.

Police found Shania's body near a house on Willow Gate Lane where she had been living with a friend's grandmother.

Shania's death certificate lists her cause of death as pending, but a police search warrant revealed that there was something suspicious about her clothing, and her mother said there was evidence of a struggle in her room.

“My daughter was a strong, outgoing young lady, and you were not just going to do anything to my daughter,” Hammonds said. “He said she didn't die from natural causes, she didn't die from a heart attack and she did not commit suicide, and that tells me someone did something to my child.”

The medical examiner has yet to release her autopsy report and police are still officially calling the case a death investigation, not a homicide.

Hammonds isn't giving up.

“I'm not going to stop fighting,” Hammonds said. “My daughter has no closure.  I have no closure.  I'm not going to stop fighting for her.”

Cox Media Group