A mother and another woman have been arrested after a 12-year-old girl was spotted at an elementary school dance with a ‘Jesus Loves’ tattoo on her right shoulder.
A fifth-grade teacher at Arnco-Sargent Elementary in Newnan, Georgia called police after she saw the tattoo on a 12-year-old girl wearing a strapless dress at a school dance.
When the teacher asked the child if the tattoo was real, she replied ‘Yes,’ according to the police report obtained by DailyMail.com.
Police arrested the girl’s mother, Emmie Crystal Nolan, 35, who is unemployed, and Brenda Gaddy, 26, an aspiring tattoo artist.
Emmie Crystal Nolan (left) and Brenda Gaddy (right) have both been arrested for allegedly because of a 12-year-old girl’s ‘Jesus Loves’ tattoo
The tattoo was a bluish-green cross with the word ‘Jesus’ above the cross and ‘Loves’ below it. Because the girl is a minor, photographs of the tattoo are not available.
Gaddy allegedly tattooed three children under the age of 18 in March. More than a dozen adults allegedly watched the woman tattoo the 12-year-old girl, according to documents obtained by DailyMail.com.
The girl originally told police that her father made her get the tattoo and had picked out the design himself. She claimed that her father had brought her to a white male’s home to get the tattoo, and that when her mother found out her parents fought about it.
Photographs of the original tattoo are not available because the child is a minor
The child then changed her story and said that her father didn’t make her get the tattoo. She claimed that she wanted to get the tattoo.
‘Each of the parents had a different story and it boiled down to frankly just finger pointing,’ Coweta County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Jason Fetner told 11Alive.
The tattoo artist initially denied the charges, but then admitted to giving the child the tattoo with the mother’s permission. Gaddy also admitted to tattooing at least two other minors, according to Fetnor.
Brenda Gaddy (pictured) is heavily tattooed. She allegedly tattooed multiple minors
After initially denying the charges, the tattoo artist admitted to giving the child the tattoo, but said that her mother gave permission to do so. She also admitted to tattooing at least two other minors, Fetner said.
‘It’s difficult to imagine how as a parent you think it’s appropriate to supervise or allow someone to give your child a tattoo at that age,’ said Fetner.
The mother has been charged with a misdemeanor of being a party to a crime and Gaddy was charged with tattooing the body of a person under the age of 18.
Investigators believe Nolan told her daughter to lie about where she got the tattoo.
‘I think it’s unfortunate in that the child actually wanted to get the tattoo,’ said Fetner. ‘It’s not like the child was forced to get the tattoo, I think it just comes down to bad parenting.’