Nevaeh Petty’s parents say state officials knew the man accused in her death had prior convictions involving children.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The death of 4-month-old Nevaeh Petty has put new attention on Tennessee’s child-protection system after the infant was fatally injured while being cared for by her mother’s boyfriend, a man police say had already been convicted of child abuse and child neglect.

The case has moved beyond the initial police investigation into a wider dispute over what state child-welfare officials knew, what they legally could do and whether existing rules give families enough protection when a person with a history of harming children is living with or caring for another child. Nevaeh’s father, Edward Wagner, said he warned the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services about Bobby Randall Conner Jr. before his daughter was hurt. Nevaeh’s mother, Jessica Petty, has also said she believed state officials had allowed Conner to remain around the baby. DCS has said confidentiality laws prevent it from confirming or discussing its involvement with a specific child or family.

Metro Nashville police said officers were sent to a home on 24th Avenue North shortly before 5 p.m. Sept. 19 after receiving a report that an infant was unresponsive. Nevaeh was rushed to Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt in very critical condition. According to police, Conner told officers that he had been lying in bed with the child while Petty was at work, got up to use the restroom and found the baby unresponsive when he returned. Doctors later told investigators that testing showed serious internal head injuries, including retinal hemorrhaging, which police said indicated abuse. Nevaeh remained on life support for several days before she died.

Police initially arrested Conner, 32, on an aggravated child abuse charge. The department said he was taken into custody at a Spence Lane motel and that a judicial commissioner set his bond at $500,000. Early reports said authorities intended to discuss upgraded charges with prosecutors after Nevaeh’s death, while later reporting described a murder charge. At an Oct. 6 preliminary hearing, however, local reporting identified the charge before the court as aggravated child abuse. A judge ruled there was enough evidence for the case to proceed to a Davidson County grand jury. The differing descriptions of the charge reflect the case’s developing procedural history, and later reporting reviewed for this article did not establish a final grand jury disposition.

The concern surrounding the case centers in large part on Conner’s record. Metro Nashville police said he was convicted of child abuse in August 2020 and received a four-year sentence. Police also said he was convicted of child neglect in connection with a March 2025 arrest and received a one-year sentence. Local reports said he was released in August 2026, only weeks before Nevaeh was found unresponsive. Those convictions were known to both of the child’s parents, according to interviews they later gave Nashville television stations.

Wagner told WSMV that he warned Petty that allowing Conner around Nevaeh was unsafe and said he contacted DCS several times. He said a welfare check was conducted and that his daughter was found unharmed at that time. Wagner also said a caseworker told him Conner was not a sex offender and could be around the child. That account came from Wagner; DCS has not publicly confirmed the details of any contact with the family. The department has said child-welfare records are confidential, limiting what officials can disclose about whether a report was made, how it was evaluated or what action was considered.

Petty has offered her own account of why Conner remained around the infant. She told NewsChannel 5 that she believed DCS had permitted the arrangement and said the agency should explain why he was allowed near Nevaeh. Petty acknowledged that she knew about Conner’s past. NewsChannel 5 reported that Petty had previously lost custody of two children and described herself as recovering from years of drug use. She said she viewed Nevaeh’s birth as a chance to demonstrate that she could be the mother others expected her to be. When the station asked whether she believed leaving Nevaeh with Conner created a risk given his history, Petty declined to answer.

NewsChannel 5 reported that, under Tennessee law, DCS could not simply remove an otherwise healthy child from a home solely because an adult there had prior nonsexual child-abuse convictions, absent another legal basis or court order. That distinction has become central to the public debate surrounding Nevaeh’s death. DCS later told WKRN that Tennessee does maintain a child-abuse registry containing people substantiated by the department as perpetrators of abuse or neglect, but unlike the state’s sex-offender registry, it is not open to general public searches. Information from the child-abuse registry can be disclosed in limited circumstances, including certain employment background checks for work involving children.

The criminal case has meanwhile produced additional evidence not available when Conner was first arrested. During an Oct. 6 hearing, a woman who had been staying at the home testified that she heard Conner yelling at the crying infant on the day she became unresponsive. A police officer described efforts to perform CPR, and a detective testified about the extent of Nevaeh’s injuries and what he observed during the child’s autopsy. Prosecutors argued that Nevaeh suffered abusive head trauma and that Conner was the person who caused it. Conner’s defense challenged that conclusion, arguing that prosecutors had not shown that he was responsible. The judge’s decision to send the matter to a grand jury was a finding of sufficient evidence to continue the prosecution, not a finding of guilt.

The questions surrounding DCS have also begun moving into the legislative arena. On Oct. 8, Wagner met with state Sen. Mark Pody to discuss possible legislation carrying Nevaeh’s name. Among the ideas discussed was making information about people with child-abuse histories more accessible to the public or imposing new restrictions intended to prevent convicted abusers from being placed in unsupervised caregiving roles. Pody said lawmakers should examine whether existing procedures were followed and whether a gap in state law contributed to the circumstances. DCS said any change to make registry information public or impose new legal restrictions would have to be decided by the Tennessee General Assembly.

Those proposals remain preliminary, and the record reviewed does not establish that DCS violated existing law or policy in Nevaeh’s case. Wagner’s statements raise questions about the agency’s response, but confidentiality rules have left much of the state’s side of the interaction outside public view. It is also unclear from the available reporting whether officials had information beyond Conner’s criminal history that would have supported a court intervention before Nevaeh was injured. That distinction could become important as lawmakers assess whether the case represents a failure to follow existing procedures, a gap in the law or some combination of circumstances that current law did not address.

For Wagner, the policy questions followed an immediate personal loss. He told WSMV that no parent should experience what happened to his family and said he wanted Conner kept away from children permanently if convicted. Later reporting said Wagner was visiting Nevaeh’s burial site daily and that her heart had been donated to another child awaiting a transplant. His push for legislation has turned his earlier warnings into part of a broader discussion over how Tennessee evaluates known histories of child abuse when deciding whether a person can remain around a child.

The criminal case remains unresolved. As of the latest court reporting reviewed, a Davidson County judge had found sufficient evidence to send the aggravated child abuse case to a grand jury, while proposals for new child-protection legislation were still being developed. Conner is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court, and no public finding reviewed here has determined that DCS violated state law in its handling of the family.

Author note: Last updated November 8, 2026.