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CEDAR HILL — When Tammy Kirk wanted to get dressed up, her daughter was her go-to. LaTiffiney Rodgers knew how to do her mother’s hair and doll her up with makeup, even applying her false eyelashes.
It wasn’t about the makeup. It was about their moments together.
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“I don’t have that anymore,” Kirk said Tuesday at her Cedar Hill home, two days after police say Rodgers was killed by the father of her children, Johnnie Palmore, setting off a manhunt for him and their two young boys.
Kirk, 58, will miss those times with her youngest daughter — and their daily phone calls filled with laughter, she said.
Rodgers, 26, recently moved out of her mother’s home, had gotten her own place and loved her new independence, Kirk said. She was hoping to get a job at the probation office in downtown Dallas.
She was a devoted mother to her two boys, 1-year-old Julien and 7-year-old Jorden, who were found safe Monday morning after police issued an Amber Alert for them, fearing they were in grave danger.
“She was talking about doing things and getting this for her apartment and doing stuff for her boys,” Kirk said. “And none of that’s going to happen now. Our world has been turned upside down.”
‘I told her I loved her every day’
Rodgers was a jokester, her mother said. Sweet and resilient, too — and a “selfie queen.”
“She took a lot of pictures, and I told her, ‘Girl, you is good with a camera phone,’” Kirk said, smiling.
Kirk’s voice at times shrunk to a whisper as she spoke about her daughter Tuesday, sitting on a couch, with photos of her children lining the wall behind her. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she described her frequent visits from Rodgers — and when she thought about how she’ll one day have to tell her grandsons what happened to their mother.
Rodgers’ oldest brother, 40-year-old ZaModeric Odom, grew up helping care for his sister and said he’d been proud to see her growing up.
“I was liking the person she was becoming. Her whole vocabulary was different,” he said. “We had a conversation Thursday and the whole conversation, I was listening to her like ‘My sister is really growing up. She’s trying to better herself.’ ”
Rodgers’ family said she had been in an off-and-on relationship with Palmore for about 10 years. Kirk said she often told her daughter, “He’s not the one,” but she never imagined he’d seriously hurt or kill her.
Kirk said the only instance of domestic violence she knew of was the time in 2018 when Palmore pushed Rodgers while she was holding Julien, causing her to drop their baby. Palmore faced a child endangerment charge after that, but it was later dismissed.
LaTiffiney Rodgers’ older brother, 27-year-old Arthur Rodgers, said he and his sister were “best friends.” Their birthdays were just over a year apart, and he said they did almost everything together.
“She was a good person. She could be serious, she could be funny — whatever you needed, she could be there,” he said.
Arthur Rodgers said his family is close — they rarely had bad times and shared a group text together where they chatted everyday.
“I’m grateful for that. I told her I loved her every day,” he said. “It makes it a little bit easier for the family.”
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Pleading for help
Kirk started to worry when her daughter didn’t respond to calls and texts Sunday morning. She had last heard from her daughter Saturday night, when Rodgers said Palmore came over for dinner and to see the boys.
So Kirk sent a cousin of Rodgers’, Ta’Daria Bealer, over to Rodgers’ apartment to knock on the door. After spotting Rodgers’ car outside, she banged on the door over and over. No one answered.
Kirk then made her first call to police pleading for a welfare check for her daughter about 2:15 p.m.
Police said Kirk told the dispatcher that Rodgers wasn’t experiencing any domestic problems with the father of her children. The call was labeled a Priority 3 — with 1 being highest priority and 4 being lowest — which has a response time goal of 30 minutes, a police spokesman said.
The second time she called police, “the lady told me that they had a lot of calls that were more prioritized than that one,” Kirk said.
Before the end of the night, Kirk called police four times, asking when an officer would be sent to her daughter’s apartment.
An officer arrived about 7:45 p.m., but police did not go inside until two hours later when the apartment’s management used a master key to get inside, according to police documents.
Inside, Rodgers was found dead on the couch, and her two children were missing.
Officers found blood on Rodgers, the floor and a baby crib, according to an arrest warrant affidavit. The document does not specify how Rodgers died but says the murder weapon was found in the apartment.
‘My mind went all night’
Kirk stayed up all night worrying about her grandsons after her daughter’s body was found.
“My mind went all night,” she said. “Lord, did he throw them in a lake? Are they headed to New Orleans? You killed them and they’re just sitting somewhere?”
Kirk got a call early Monday from a woman she didn’t know, saying her grandchildren were safe at her apartment in northeast Dallas. Kirk called police, and within a few hours, SWAT surrounded the apartment.
When officers entered, Palmore shot himself. He later died at a hospital.
The boys were not physically harmed, police said.
Leah Williams, 23, was the woman who called Rodgers’ mother to let her know Julien and Jorden were safe.
Williams said a detective called about 6:30 a.m. Monday to tell her Palmore had been involved in a homicide. Williams then went to Facebook and saw posts from Rodgers’ mother pleading for information about Jorden and Julien’s whereabouts.
“I wanted her to know that her grandchildren were safe and OK,” Williams said.
She said Palmore was at her apartment when SWAT teams descended on the complex.
Palmore and Williams weren’t in a relationship before he died, but Williams called him the “love of my life” and her soul mate.
Williams said Palmore told her he’d “snapped” and killed Rodgers.
“He didn’t want to die, but he didn’t know what else to do,” Williams said.
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‘We want our grandbabies’
Kirk rushed to the Dallas Children’s Advocacy Center on Monday after police told her she could pick up Jorden and Julien there, she said.
She felt “wonderful” when she knew the boys had been rescued, she said. “Relieved, excited to go get them. ‘Cause that’s what the detective said.”
But then the family sat in a room for hours without the boys.
“But we want our grandbabies,” she said. “We want to see them, we want them.”
She was distraught when she learned the family can’t take the boys home for two weeks, while Child Protective Services conducts a standard home study.
The boys are in foster care for now, Kirk said. She asked for the state to keep the boys together while she waits to bring them home.
“I really want them to be together,” she said. “They’ve been together since birth.”