CHESAPEAKE, Va. -- "Daddy, daddy, what are you doing?"
Those were the last words a Chesapeake mother heard over the phone before her 11-year-old daughter was murdered, a close family friend of the victim's mother told WTKR. Kentucky State Police said 11-year-old Tasha Jonas was shot by her own father, 49-year-old John Jonas, who then turned the gun on himself.
A neighbor found the bodies outside their Vine Grove home, near Fort Knox where John served as an Army Lt. Col.
"This definitely could have been prevented," Tanja Manojlovic, a friend of Tasha's mother, Karina Jonas, said.
Manojlovic said she's known Tasha and Karina Jonas for 10 years.
"Besides a tremendous amount of grief, there's an overwhelming amount of anger," Manojlovic said.
Anger, because she said she believed this all happened over a custody battle. Manojlovic said Tasha moved with her father from Suffolk to Kentucky two years ago. And ever since, she said Karina fought to get Tasha back.
"Karina was fighting to tell the lawyers, the judges, the school, the social services," she said.
A hearing was even scheduled for August, where Manojlovic said Tasha could choose which parent she wanted to live with.
"When it's all said and done, we all look back and feel like we've all betrayed her in some level," she said. "The system has betrayed her."
Police have not confirmed a motive and said they're still waiting on autopsy results. However, loved ones said those results won't bring Tasha back.
"It hits home," Rachel Given, who worked with Karina, said "Somebody personal, somebody you've known for eight years, watching her grow up and then now nothing. She won't grow up."
Family friends have organized a GoFundMe page to raise money needed to bring Tasha back home to Virginia.
