Tawnia McGeehan and her daughter Addilyn Smith were found with fatal gunshot wounds in a Las Vegas hotel room in February

Addilyn Smith, Addilyn Smith and Tawnia McGeehan

Addilyn Smith (left); and Addilyn Smith and Tawnia McGeehan.Credit : GoFundMe; Tawnia McGeehan/Facebook

A mother and daughter found slain in a Nevada hotel in February were reportedly discovered after officials noticed a note on the room door that led them to suspect a suicide.

Addilyn Smith, 11, and her mother, 34-year-old Tawnia McGeehan, were found fatally shot in a Las Vegas, Nev., hotel room on Feb. 15 by hotel personnel conducting a welfare check, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said at the time.

The statement did not identify them but PEOPLE has since confirmed their identities through a family member.

Authorities believe McGeehan fatally shot Addilyn before turning the gun on herself.

Police initially went to check on them on the morning of Feb. 15 after receiving a request for a welfare check on the pair, the LVMPD said in their statement.

Addilyn’s cheerleading coach requested a welfare check when the girl did not show up at the cheerleading competition she was attending in Las Vegas, according to 911 call records obtained and published by the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Police knocked on their door and didn’t get any response. The LVMPD said authorities had no reason to believe the mother-daughter duo were in danger, and cleared the issue.

However, hotel personnel received several other requests for a welfare check over the next few hours, prompting another check by staff, per LVMPD.

At around 2:26 p.m., fire officials told dispatchers they had found a note on a door, and believed there had been a possible suicide attempt, according to the Review-Journal, which cited police in its reporting.

At 2:27 p.m., hotel staff entered the hotel room, the LVMPD said in their statement.

At 2:35 p.m., dispatchers received a call from ambulance officials who said they had found an adult woman and her child deceased, per the Review-Journal. It wasn’t immediately clear if the note was on the door of the room where McGeehan and Addilyn were staying.

PEOPLE was not immediately able to access an incident report.

James Watts, who was McGeehan’s attorney, confirms to PEOPLE he is aware of the note, but has not seen it.

“I do not know what the content is,” he says. “It is the family’s hope at some point, when it’s no longer required by law enforcement, that it will be returned to [McGeehan’s] mother, [who] would like to know what was being said at the time.”

Addilyn Smith
Addilyn Smith.Tawnia McGeehan/Facebook

Addilyn was a beloved member of the cheer community in Utah.

“She was so beyond loved, and she will always be a part of the UXC family,” Utah Xtreme Cheer said in a post on Facebook shortly after her death.

 

“She took a lot of pride in what she was doing,” Emily Morgan, a former coach of Addilyn, previously told KUTV. “And because of that attitude, I always knew she was going to go far in this experience.”

Police have not commented on a possible motive behind the violence.

According to court records previously cited by KUTV, McGeehan had temporarily lost custody of Addilyn following her divorce with the child’s father in 2017.

However, she was given joint custody in 2020, and had since supported Addilyn’s passion for cheerleading, Watts says.

If you suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.