CINCINNATI — Britney Mayes will stand trial Monday morning charged with murder in the death of her four-year-old daughter, Avery Hobbs. In July of 2016, Hobbs was found unresponsive in a bathtub in a home on Beech Avenue in West Price Hill. She died at Children's Hospital three days later.
Avery Hobbs' father, Jamie Hobbs, said he has thought about his daughter and the circumstances surrounding her death every day for the last three and a half years. He said he's nervous now that the trial against Mayes is set to start, but he hopes the truth will come out.
"Everybody who was in her life was blessed to be in it," Jamie Hobbs said. "I know I was."
Avery is remembered by her father and aunt as a joyful girl who brightened everyone's day.
"For the most part, she was a happy, goofy, bubbly child," Hobbs said. "Loved to be around people. Loved to smile. That child never cried. She never cried."
Avery Hobbs' death was ruled a homicide. The coroner attributed her death to blunt force trauma to the head.
"I was angry," Avery Hobbs' aunt, Angela Williams, said. "I was so angry when I found out that it was her. That she was being -- because a mom's not supposed to do that."
Britney Mayes was indicted on murder charges in August of 2016.
"Everybody was devastated," Hobbs said. "We all fought for years to try and keep her (Britney Mayes) away."
Hobbs' family tried to get custody of Avery after Mayes served jail time for child endangerment. That charge related to a head injury the little girl suffered at six weeks of age. Hobbs was set to meet with an attorney to start the process of gaining custody of his daughter the same day she was found unresponsive in the bathtub.
"I don't think any family should have to go through what we're going through or any child should have to go through what she went through," Williams said.
The family said they know the trial won't make the situation any better, but they hope that it does bring some closure.
"We're not going to have this pain and heartbreak in the back of our head anymore knowing that for three years there was no justice and nothing happened," Hobbs said.
Britney Mayes' murder trial starts Monday at 9 a.m.
