Two families, school, community feel ripple effect of 8-year-old's shooting death
“One of the hardest things, and it’s still hard, is accepting that it’s real,” says the grieving father of Jenesis Dockery.
Eight months ago, Fon Dockery dropped off his daughters — 8-year-old Jenesis and Amara, then 5 — at the home of a babysitter, a trusted woman who had cared for them before.
Before the day was over, Jenesis had been shot in the head. Two days later, she died — four days shy of her ninth birthday.
“She’s not going to be in that room when I go check on her, and it’s hard,” Fon Dockery said. “It's hard to accept.”
Fon and Kimberly Dockery are among the hundreds of parents across North Carolina coming to terms with the tragic loss of a child. Across the state in the last six years, more than 600 kids died from gun violence.
Guns kill more kids in the U.S. than any other cause – more than cancer, more than car crashes. In North Carolina, the problem is worse: Children are 51% more likely to die from guns than the national average.
Tragedy strikes in a trusted environment
Jenesis’ parents remember a bubbly, energetic child. Their home is filled with photos, paintings, memories that capture her glow.
“She smiled. Oh my God, her smile,” Fon Dockery says.
She loved TikTok. She loved to do dances on TikTok.”
Mother Kimberly Dockery replays those videos.
“If you're having a bad day, Jenesis is gonna make you laugh,” she says.
A short time after he left his daughters with a babysitter, Fon Dockery got a frantic call. The babysitter was screaming and crying, he remembers, telling him that Jenesis had been shot.
“So I asked her, ‘Hey, have you called the ambulance?’
“And she said, ‘No, I called you.’
“I said, ‘Get off the phone with me and save my daughter's life.’”
The babysitter then called 911 and told the operator what she said happened.
On that call, she can be heard. She says, “My son brought … I didn't know my son brought a gun home from my dad's house, and it fell out of the closet, and it shot the little girl that I'm babysitting.”
Again at the end of the call, the babysitter said, “My son is the one that brought it home, and I didn't know.”
Jenesis was shot in the head. The 8-year-old was rushed to the hospital.
Two days later, she died.
As they grieve, Jenesis’ parents search for someone to be held accountable for her death.
In August, the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office Special Victims Unit Detectives detained an unidentified 11-year-old boy, who was accused of shooting and killing Jenesis.
“I think he pulled the trigger,” Fon Dockery said of the 11-year-old son of the babysitter. A lawyer for the family has said allegations against the boy are that he stole two guns from the safe of a relative.
He says, “There's no way that grandfather, as a gun owner, can tell me he believes that a gun fell and went off and the trajectory of that bullet came from falling from the ground. There's no way.”
Plenty of blame, but no criminal consequences
That lack of accountability, Dockery says, is a tragedy second only to the loss of his daughter’s life.
He is frustrated, he says, “That an 8-year-old child's life can be taken and nobody be put into custody – not the babysitter who should have been supervising; not the gun owner who should have been responsible and knew where his gun was; and not the shooter himself.”
Eventually, the Cumberland County sheriff’s office filed a complaint with the Division of Juvenile Justice alleging two counts of larceny of a firearm and one count of manslaughter were warranted against the 11-year-old.
Fon Dockery attended every hearing in the case.
He said, “I have to go in this courtroom and look at this young man who hasn't shown, by the way, any signs of remorse. I have to go in this courtroom and see his mom and his grandfather, the babysitter and the gun owner, hear her pathetic excuses. And constantly they walk out of the courtroom just like me, like nothing took place. Like they have no accountability. Like my child wasn't killed at the residence by his gun.”
The 11-year-old was in custody until a judge ordered him released to a family member. He later gave the juvenile equivalent of a guilty plea and was placed on probation.
Neither the 11-year-old’s mother, who was supposed to be watching Jenesis at the time of the shooting, nor her father, the gun owner, face any criminal charges.
In addition to their heartbreak over the loss of 8-year-old Jenesis, Fon and Kimberly Dockery worry for their younger child, Amara.
“They were two peas in a pod, everywhere together,” their father says.
Amara, then 5, was in the room the day her sister was shot.
The babysitter and mother of the 11-year-old spoke exclusively to WRAL about what happened on that tragic day. It is the only interview she has done about what happened. She agreed to talk to show how many lives have been destroyed by this senseless tragedy.
She insists she did not know the gun was in her house, but she knows her son shares the blame for Jenesis’ death.
“If he never would've put his hands on that gun, this never would've happened,” she says. “If he would not have went into the gun safe, this wouldn't have happened. Yes, he should have been charged with larceny of a firearm because he did. He knew better.”
She blames her father, too, for failing to store the gun safely.
“He's a gun owner. He knows to change a code so nobody will know it,” she says. “I honestly believe it would not have happened if he would've changed his code.”
Jenesis Dockery’s short life, tragic death touched many
The loss of a child to gun violence has a ripple effect.
Jenesis’ parents are heartbroken. Her sister lost her best friend.
The babysitter and her children are in therapy, dealing with the fallout of what happened at their home.
At Riverside Christian Academy, where Jenesis and Amara attended school, the family returned for a balloon release, to share their memories with Jenesis’ teachers and friends.
The principal painted a mural in honor of Jenesis in the courtyard. Children and parents wrote notes to Jenesis and launched each along with a balloon.
“This isn't just our loss,” Fon Dockery told them. “Y'all were friends with Jenesis. Y'all made memories with Jenesis, and that's important.”
Jenesis' family announces nonprofit to create change
On Saturday, dozens of people joined the Dockery family for a screening of Jenesis' story in "UnSafe: North Carolina kids dying from gun violence" and the announcement of a new nonprofit in her name.
The “Live like Jenesis” project, a nonprofit dedicated to inform, educate and create change in gun safety laws and policies.
"Everything we embodied, everything we talked about, circles back to responsible gun ownership, responsible gun storage," Jenesis' father Fon Dockery said.
Somethings got to be done," said family friend Tyreese Roundtree. "There's too many children's lives being taken at an early age for no reason, no reason at all."
The Dockery family is also considering a civil lawsuit against the babysitter’s family.
Gun safety resources: Get a free gun lock
Learn about how to store your firearms safely at home and on the go, how to talk to your children about gun safety and how to make sure that schools and playdates are a safe environment from NC S.A.F.E.
Download a free gun safety kit or request a free gun lock from Project Child Safe.
The Durham County Gun Safety Program also offers outreach events, best safety practices and free gun locks on request.
