Flag raised to honor child

Staff report

WARREN

David Brantley of Warren says it’s hard knowing he’ll never see his little girl, A’Nana Brantley, start or finish school, but it’s helpful to “know she’s with God.”

“For two months, we’ve all had restless nights wanting to know why,” he said of the girl’s death. She died Sept. 9 in her home on Transylvania Avenue Southeast.

Recently, Dr. Humphrey Germaniuk, Trumbull County coroner, ruled the 15-month-old girl died as a result of homicide caused by blunt traumatic injuries.

Her mother, Joy D. Hodge, 28, was indicted last week on charges of murder, felonious assault and child endangering in the girl’s death. Hodge will be arraigned in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court on Wednesday.

David Brantley was among family members who attended the flag-raising ceremony in front of the Trumbull County Courthouse on Monday to remember the girl.

Miriam Fife, victim-witness advocate for Trumbull County, organized the flag-raising, which takes place every time a Trumbull County child’s life is cut short by violence.

The flag, which will fly until next Monday, shows children and a space where a child is missing to symbolize “a young life once again taken by a tragedy,” Fife said.

Germaniuk also has ruled the death of Alex Burtt, 11 months, to be a homicide as a result of scalding. He was found dead Tuesday in his home on Summit Street Northwest.

The boy’s uncle, who was baby-sitting him and four siblings, said he doesn’t know how the boy got into the bathtub where the scalding took place.