Overview

• Officials say 13-year-old Melony Granados, who had epilepsy and severe cognitive impairments, was kept in a makeshift enclosure inside her grandmother’s Tempe home in grossly unsanitary conditions.
• Tempe police found Granados unresponsive after a January 2025 911 call, and she died at a hospital the following day.
• Investigators documented multiple wounds in various stages of healing and described a converted bunk bed enclosure with zip-tied gates and human waste.
• Grandmother Virginia Lujan was indicted in February on child abuse and related charges but died in custody in September of what authorities described as natural causes.
• Mother Jami Hodges faces child-abuse-related charges, both adults acknowledged the girl was kept in the enclosure, and the household’s other children remain in state care.