Content warning. This video is about a sensitive topic involving loss of life. We’ve removed any graphic content to comply with YouTube’s guidelines. We aim to provide informative factual journalism on a tragic event in the public interest that does not dismiss its seriousness. All clips are used under the doctrine of fair use for news reporting and analysis.
Melanie Rose Granados was born sometime in 2011 to Mother Jamie Hodes. Sadly, not much is known about her early life. So, what information that we do know has been pieced together via Jaime’s social media accounts. Based on pictures, it appeared that Melanie had four siblings and was the second oldest of Jaime’s children.
According to one source, the children’s ages ranged between 2 years old and 15 years old. The family lived in the Southwest with addresses in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Tempe, Arizona. At the time of our story, Melanie was 13 years old. The family was staying with Jaime’s mother, 55year-olds of Virginia, Luhan, in a town home located near Mill Avenue and Carter Drive off of Route 60 in Tempe.
According to Google Maps, this appears to be within the Avana Tempe apartment complex. Melanie lived with myoclonic atonic epilepsy, also known as myoconic aatic epilepsy. This disorder, also known as deuce syndrome, is a form of childhood onset epilepsy. It is characterized by a combination of myoconic seizures or brief muscle jerks and atonic seizures which cause a sudden loss of muscle tone causing the person to fall or drop objects.
According to the epilepsy foundation, due syndrome accounts for 1 to 2% of all childhood onset epilepsies. Those with de syndrome can also experience drop attacks where they suddenly fall or drop their head, relapses of consciousness, and fullon grand mall seizures. In some cases, the person may experience sudden, brief, and symmetrical muscle contractions known as epileptic spasms.
Usually, this is treated with anti-seizure medications. In drugresistant cases, a strict ketogenic diet has been found to be beneficial in treating symptoms. It is estimated that about a third of all adult epileptics and roughly 20 to 25% of epileptic children continue to have drugresistant seizures. In many cases, the exact cause of myoclonic atonic epilepsy remains unknown, but some publications such as the Lancet have noted that genetic testing is important as a substantial subset of patients have single gene causes. In addition, Melanie
was intellectually disabled and was described as having the mental capacity of a three-year-old. It’s been noted that cognitive and developmental delays are common in some individuals with myoclonic atonic epilepsy, especially if the seizures are difficult to control. In Melany’s case, her epilepsy was classified as drugresistant.
She also experienced incontinence issues, but according to reports, she was not reliant on a caregiver for her hygiene needs. At around 900 p.m. on January 21st, 2025, Virginia called 911 to report that her 13-year-old granddaughter was unresponsive and not breathing. According to the grandmother, Melanie had fallen down the stairs 2 days prior on January 19th, but she chose not to seek medical attention because she thought that the teen would be fine.
Melanie, who was covered in bruises and soores in various stages of healing, was taken to the Cardan Children’s Medical Center in Mesa for treatment. It was noted that she had blood in her ears and her face appeared swollen. Sadly, after hours of life-saving measures, Melanie Rose Granados was pronounced dead the following morning at around 3:00 a.m.
Due to the severity of Melany’s condition, the Arizona Criminal Investigations Bureau was notified of her death. Soon, a full-scale investigation was launched to uncover what exactly happened to the teenager. When questioned at the hospital, Virginia claimed that Melanie had hit her head on the wall and damaged the drywall after falling down the stairs from the second floor to the landing.
She claimed that the following day, January 20th, her granddaughter seemed fine. However, she started to act differently as time went on. She described Melanie as being slow and drowsy. According to 33-year-old Jaime, she was unaware of the tumble that her daughter supposedly suffered just days before her death, but admitted that since staying with her mother, she hadn’t actually seen Melanie regularly.
Allegedly, she felt incapable of providing the care that her daughter needed. During the course of their investigation, it was found that in 2021, Jaime had transferred guardianship of four of her five children to her mother. According to an article in the AZ Central, Jaime had lost custody due to struggles with addiction and a relationship that was rife with family violence.
According to reports, Jaime and her children had moved in with Virginia after structural issues forced them out of their own home. However, the grandmother’s town home wasn’t exactly equipped for two adults and five children to be staying there long term. It was described as a two-story three-bedroom unit. Jaime and her 2-year-old daughter slept in the living room.
Virginia slept in her own bedroom while the remaining children shared the remaining two bedrooms. Investigators also discovered that none of Jaime’s children were enrolled in school. Based on pictures posted to Jaime’s Facebook account, it appeared that at least four of the five kids were school-aged. Jaime told investigators that earlier in the afternoon of January 21st, she noticed that Melanie was acting off.
In her words, she described her daughter’s eyes as droopy and claimed that she was acting weird. She then noticed a large rash or discoloration under Melany’s armpits and on the back of her legs. When she asked her mother what happened, she claimed that Melanie must have fallen out of the bed the night prior. According to Jaime, she wanted to reach out for medical assistance, but Virginia was worried that she would get into trouble due to the teenager’s condition.
So, instead of taking care of Melanie, Jaime decided to go to the gym and the grocery store with her 15year-old son. Around 8:30 p.m., Virginia called Jaime and told her that they needed to come home and then quickly hung the phone up. When Jaime called her mother back to find out what was going on, she told her that she had attempted to feed Melanie and that she was, in her words, gargling or gasping.
Jaime then rushed home to find her daughter sprawled out on Virginia’s bed. Grandmother was laying over her. She hadn’t even bothered to call 911 yet because she was too busy trying to, and I quote, “Clean Melanie up so she did not look so bad.” According to reports, Virginia instructed her 15-year-old grandson to bring his unresponsive sister downstairs.
Grandmother then came downstairs and hugged each of her grandchildren and told them, “I wouldn’t hurt you.” It was only then, a half hour later, that emergency services were contacted. When detectives executed a search warrant at Virginia’s town home, they discovered something shocking. 13-year-old Melody was being kept in a makeshift cage.
According to official documents, and I quote, “Police discovered an elevated bed frame similar to bunk beds inside with the exception that there was no bed or mattress on the bottom. Instead, the tall bed frame create a space underneath the top bunk. A large rail large enough to enclose the long right side of the bed and another rail with plastic baby gates attached to it were found by this bed.
These items together were attached to the frame as walls for an enclosure. These components were zip tied together with multiple multicolored plastic zip ties. In addition, the house was filthy with trash littering the home’s floors and dead insects such as cockroaches being seen in various parts of the home. Police also noted that there was human waste on the floor within the makeshift cage.
This seems to be a recurring theme that we come across in cases of neglect resulting in the death of a disabled victim. Both Virginia Luhan and Jamie Hodes were arrested and charged with felony CA. Virginia’s charges were later upgraded to two counts of felony CA, one count of tampering with a witness and three misdemeanor counts of contributing to the dependency of a child.
As of the date of this recording in August of 2025, Virginia remains in police custody on a $500,000 bond. Now, should she make bond, she’s not allowed to have contact with anyone under the age of 18, among other restrictions. Jaime was released pending charges. All four of her remaining children were placed in the care of social services.
The Tempe Police Department held a press conference which was led by Chief Kenneth McCoy. Good afternoon. We are deeply saddened by the tragic death of 13-year-old Melanie Granados. Our thoughts are with her family, friends, and everyone affected by this devastating event. No child should ever have to endure suffering.
We are committed to uncovering the truth and seeking justice on her behalf. On Tuesday evening, our officers responded to the home of Virginia Luhan after she called 911 to report that her 13-year-old granddaughter Melanie was unresponsive. Despite immediate life-saving efforts, she was she was pronounced dead early Wednesday morning at the hospital.
Melanie, who had a cognitive delay with the mental capacity of a three-year-old, had been in the care of her grandmother along with several other children. During the investigation, our officers observed that she had extensive injuries, including bruises and soores in various stages of healing. A search of the home uncovered horrible conditions along with a makeshift cage filled with feces.
Luhan and Melanie’s mother, Jamie Hodes, admitted they kept her in a cage to maintain control of her. Hajes, the mother, had been temporarily staying at the home with her five children, four of whom were under Luhan’s care. Hajes admitted she had not regularly seen Melanie during this time, and was unaware of a reported fall down the stairs that Luhan claimed occurred two days earlier.
Luhan did not seek medical attention for Melanie after the alleged fall. saying she believed that she would recover. We arrested 55-year-old Virginia Luhan, who is currently in custody. Melanie’s mother, 33-year-old Jamie Hodes, was arrested and released pending charges. Both women face child charges, and additional charges may follow as our investigation continues.
The tragic loss of a child is a profound reminder of our shared responsibility to protect the most vulnerable in our community. Investigations like this demand meticulous attention to detail and sensitivity to the emotional toll that it takes on everyone involved. The Tempe Police Department is committed to holding these individuals responsible and ensuring that no child endures this type of suffering.
We urge anyone with information regarding this case to contact the Tempe Police Department. Your assistance is vital as we seek justice and to work to prevent tragedies such as this in the future. Thank you. Next, Tempe Police Department spokeswoman Officer Jessica Ellis fielded questions from the media. And we do have times for some questions.
Um, what is the status of the other four children and did they show any signs of So, they were removed by DCS and they are in other care. Uh, we are continuing our investigation into the status of those children. Yes. Can you explain a little bit about Hodgeges being released pending charges? It seemed that there was a confession of holding the child in a makeshift cage.
Can you just kind of explain or uh give us a little bit more clarity of that? Uh, of course. So, Hajes was released pending charges and what that means is that she was uh booked for charges but released pending further investigation. So, right now she did make some statements but there were more that could be followed up with her statements.
They weren’t exactly as concise as her holding the child in the cage. So there is still more to investigate with her. Is there any I know it’s still under investigation. Is there any idea though on what caused the unresponsiveness of Melanie? We are going to be waiting for an autopsy and that will hopefully give us some clarity to that.
Any idea how long this been taking place or how long this child may have been locked up in the cage? We can’t speak to that right now. We are still actively investigating. So, we’re hoping that as we gather more information, we will be able to get a timeline to that. Was there any evidence that she had ever been taken to a doctor? Once again, that that’s going to be part of our factf finding as we investigate.
And uh you mentioned they’re waiting on an autopsy. Other charges could be pending. Is it possible to say that homicide charges could be among those possibilities with your investigation? That may be a possibility. We did see at the house sort of a makeshift dog house in the backyard. Can you say whether that’s the cage? Was the cage inside or outside? That likely belong There is a dog in the home as well.
Uh the cage that we are referring to was inside the home. Any way you can describe was it a cage? Was she kept in a closet or was she just kept in a cage in a room or what can you tell us about where where this 13-year-old had been kept in that in those conditions? The best way to describe it, it was a bunk bed, but the lower bed of that bunk was not there, and the bunk bed around the bottom was surrounded by baby cages and makeshift uh bars for the bottom of that bunk bed.
Can you talk a little bit more to just about the conditions inside the home? Were there any other red flags that officers noticed or what was it like inside the home other than this makeshift cage? The home was very disorderly. It was not very clean. Um, it just was very deplorable conditions to say the least.
Was she in school and did anyone not notice this condition about her? The information that we have right now is that none of the children had been attending school. Ages of the children. Do we have ages range from what? What? We have an age range of the youngest being 2 to 15 years old.
Had there ever been calls to that home before reports of previously? We’re still looking into all of the calls for service, but right now it just appears very minimal calls. Can you talk a little bit more about Melany’s condition? Obviously, there was bruises at different stages of healing, but did you see him malnourished or were there any other medical issues as well? We’re hoping to find more information of uh malnourishment or any other medical problems with the autopsy.
Have you had an opportunity to interview neighbors? Did any of them notice anything unusual? That’s still part of the continued investigation. I know that today detectives were doing additional interviews with other people. So, that’s all going to be part of the investigative process. It should be noted that when the media spoke to neighbors living in Virginia’s apartment complex, they admitted that they didn’t even know that the 13-year-old existed.
Just a very general statement is that four of the children were under the care of grandma while mom had care of a the youngest child. The exact custody arrangement through DCS. We are still looking into what the exact arrangements were. Do we have any info on Melany’s father notification? any involvement in Melany’s life? I don’t have that information with her father or any of the other children.
Just to be clear so I understand accurately, the grandmother, she claimed that the girl had fallen down the stairs two days prior, was she relating that to what happened Tuesday night to the call Tuesday night? As far as we understand, that’s one of the reasons she said that the child might have been unresponsive.
Can you talk about officers going in a situation like this? This is obviously a very emotional story. The community impacted. Can you talk about the impact officers have arriving on the scene and hearing about this child? So, one of the things that the department really uh looks into is our wellness of our officers, right? So, anytime we have calls that are of this magnitude that may affect the mental health of our officers, we do have a peer support team.
So they will be checking in with any officers or detectives or anyone who essentially had a part in this case just to check in and make sure that they’re doing okay. You know, we do recognize that a lot of officers do have children around this age range. So it’s really important to always follow up. Do you have the street address of this property or the cross streets? What part of town was this? The cross streets are going to be Mill Avenue and the US60 just south.
You’ve been on the force a long time. I mean your reaction when when you see a story like this. You guys come across all kinds of things, but it affects you personally as well as everyone else. Of course, the these specific calls are just heartbreaking. These are the calls that you never want to have to go on.
Um they’re the calls we wish we didn’t have to see, but that is why we signed up to do this job is because we want to be able to speak for these victims and to be able to have a voice for them and get justice. What Officer Ellis just explained sums up exactly why Drewie and I cover the cases that we do.
Whether you’re a first responder, a member of the news media, or even someone with a podcast or a YouTube channel, you end up taking up a bit of a vow to honor those who have lost their lives to violence and neglect. You’re now the voice for those who no longer have one. You’re their advocate.
When it comes to crimes committed against our most vulnerable populations, it does weigh heavily on your soul and mental health. But as officer Ellis put it, this is what we signed up to do. Uh we hadn’t been out there recent within the recent history. We had been out there for other calls um within the past years, but again, nothing to do with any sort of abuse cases.
I know you had also mentioned that it will be a little while part of the investigation. But, you know, as far as we talking about months, possibly years that this child was in this cage, I mean, I know we’re kind of speculating, but long period of time. I mean, any any way you can give us a rough estimate as to what we’re talking about? We really can’t speak to how long she had been in the cage or controlled by the cage.
What we do know is that she had been in the care of her grandma for a significant amount of time. So, these are all pieces of evidence that we will use to hopefully piece together a more accurate timeline. One more question, guys, and feel free to ask ask the question to the chief or commander as well. The press conference concluded with a few thoughts from Chief McCoy as to how these types of cases impact him and the community.
Absolutely. The these are just heartbreaking situations that not only impact our officers but impact the whole community. And for us to see a child suffering like this um again just reiterates why we do this work and why it’s so important that all of us as a collective do everything we can to keep the most vulnerable in our community safe.
And so our our officers, you know, are are working around the clock right now to find answers in this situation. Um, but where I started with this is our our hearts go out um to to Melanie and uh again this is a tragedy for our whole community. So, thank you. Thank you everyone. Now, as this case is still developing, we will keep an eye out for updates as they become available.
And as is the situation with all cases that have yet to go to trial, both Virginia Luhan and Jamie Hodgeges are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Much like in Melany’s life, we don’t know a lot about her story after death. An obituary was never published in her name, nor does she have a find a grave listing.
Her final resting place, wherever that may be, continues to remain a mystery as of the date of this recording. As we mentioned earlier, Jaime remains free pending additional charges. for her Facebook account. It appears that she’s been allowed supervised visits with her children at a local McDonald’s. In a recent post dated July 31st, 2025, it appears that Jaime was getting ready to go on a date.
Now, maybe it’s just me, but if I lost custody of my four children and I was looking at charges connected to my disabled daughter’s death, dating would probably be the last thing on my mind. I think one of the first questions that I had regarding this case that I think a lot of people will be asking is why is the grandmother being charged more than the mother is? So my only guess for that is she was technically the legal guardian.
But what doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense to me is that we see people who are, you know, when there’s a death involved, like all parties get in trouble for the same thing, whether it’s mom’s new man or like, you know, the other parents. It It’s kind of weird that mom knew what was going on.
Even even if she wasn’t taking care of her daughter very well, you know, she’s in a cage. She got two counts CA, two counts tampering with physical evidence, which we didn’t have at the time of recording. So, she got additional charges for tampering with physical evidence. She also got one count of tampering with a witness and three counts of contributing to the dependency of a child, which I’ll have this in the show notes, the state of Arizona’s definition for contributing to the dependency of a child. And it basically reads to me as
your standard neglect charge. This is just how they word it. Yeah. It’s just the whole thing is confused. And I I wish there was just more information. I know that this case is just breaking and that while it’s still under investigation, you know, more charges could be brought forward.
But I just really like who did she intimidate? Was it the siblings? Was it her daughter? Is that maybe why she’s not getting as many charges as grandma is right now? And I’ve noticed that usually when we cover a case that has a tampering with witness charge, we don’t have any information on that nine times out of 10.
So I don’t expect that to come to light. Um I don’t know. But the tampering with evidence, was it because she was trying to clean the little girl up? Possibly. Trying to clean up the cage. I don’t know how you’d clean up the cage. like from from what we’re hearing, the whole house is disgusting. So, exactly.
And this kind of brings me to another thing that I know people like to mention, especially when it comes to a murder of a disabled child. The big comment I see is, well, they probably were kicked off benefits. They didn’t qualify. And that is just not true here based on our research. Now, I can’t I don’t have any information that says that they were kicked off, but what I do have for information, and this comes from the state of Arizona’s website, um it’s through the Department of Economic Security.
They have a subdivision called the Division of DE of I’m sorry, Division of Developmental Disabilities. And when you go to the the site, it’s dees.govD. And right there, front and center, they tell you their admission and who qualifies. So, DDD supports eligible individuals diagnosed with one of the following developmental disabilities: autism, cerebral palsy, epilepsy, cognitive/intellectual disability, down syndrome, or if you are under the age of six and merely at risk of having a developmental disability.
So, so she totally qualified with epilepsy. she absolutely qualified and they and they do not make the differential of what type of epilepsy it has to be and she she had a very extreme form. They just list epilepsy. So, she should have qualified and I know that in the information they described her as not being reliant on a caregiver.
I am somewhat suspicious of that. And clearly with the state of the house and the state she was in that Melanie was in, I think she could have benefited from having a caregiver and certainly having a professional in there. Yeah, it it said in our research that she she didn’t need anyone for her hygiene or bathroom needs, but she probably did.
So yeah, like the other thing that really annoys me, and this happens with some frequency on this channel in these stories that we cover is that of the mom while they’re facing charges or even after they’re charged, they hop right up on dating sites. So you see fathers doing it, too. But usually since mothers are more likely to kill their child based on statistics, yes, this is something we see.
So, you know, I don’t know if she was on some sort of site, but she’s posting on Facebook, ooh, date night. Well, if you’re facing charges where you know you are somewhat responsible for the death of your daughter and you don’t have custody of your other kids, like what are you doing going on dates just like work on bettering yourself and work on like the case you are like facing because the same thing when we covered uh Macy Grace Diddy like her mom I mean she’s probably going to be facing charges now. We’ll get to that at some
other point but that case is we’ll be revisiting that case. Absolutely. Yeah. But she’s sitting there out on Tinder. I’m like, you’re gross. Why? She’s lost. It just makes me crazy. Some sources say she lost three of her five kids. Others say four out of five. And at different times. Well, let’s let’s say, you know, let’s pretend that she’s 100% innocent here somehow.
If I were in her shoes, I would be doing everything I can to get myself in a safe place, a clean place, and get my children back. like my daughter just died. Yeah. And this is this doesn’t seem like the first time. Like I didn’t include it in the script because I just wasn’t sure.
But if you you look at her social media, she she has more than one social media page, much like a lot of moms we cover. But in one of her older ones when, you know, her kids were much much smaller, she had posted some things that made it seem like she possibly had lost them at one point. I mean, I can’t be sure. She had said something to the effect of, you know, she couldn’t wait to to hold Melody again.
And so, you have information that suggests that she had Melanie or the other kids taken away, got them back, and then lost them again at the time of But we can’t be sure. It’s not definitive. But regardless, yeah, work on getting your kids back. Work on bettering yourself. You you you could be going away for a long time.
100%.
