Rachel Suzanne Wagner, 51, was found dead at her home on East 18th Street in Tifton, Georgia, from a single gunshot wound to the back of her head. Officers discovered her body after she failed to show up for work and Tifton police checked the residence with the landlord’s help when there was no answer at the door.

The investigation quickly focused on Rachel’s 14-year-old daughter, Lilyana Rose Wagner, after a single-vehicle crash in Bibb County the morning of November 19, 2024, involved Lilyana and her mother’s car. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation joined local police and, over months of forensic work on the teenager’s phone, found Lilyana had become obsessed with school shootings and had communicated with anonymous online contacts who encouraged violence. The gun had been bought at a pawn shop a month earlier by Rachel and kept in the teen’s bedroom with ammunition.

Lilyana left a handwritten confession saying killing her mother was a last-minute decision; she also wrote that she had planned an attack at her former middle school but chose her mother instead, and a diary entry said she feared Rachel would discover initials carved into her thighs. Does anyone have information about Rachel, Lilyana, or their lives in Tifton that could shed more light on what led to this tragedy?