FIGHT OVER CHARLIE
Grannies in tug-o’-war for girl, 3 Parents slain 18 months apart Kin of ‘angel’ suing city for $30M
She was their Queen Charlie.
A doe-eyed 3-year-old who lost her mom and dad to violence is now at the center of a custody feud between grieving grandmothers — even as the somber little girl could inherit a windfall from lawsuits filed by her fractious family.
“That’s an angel right there. A blessed angel,” paternal grandmother Tamara Etheridge, 49, told the Daily News on Thursday, nod ding at the little girl playing silently with a balloon and a toy squirt gun in the Harlem apartment where she lived with her dad, Randy McNair, 25, and Etheridge.
On June 15, a man shot and killed McNair, 26, in Harlem. Charlie’s mom, Tonie Wells, died Dec. 28, 2017, after her husband, Barry, tossed her down a flight of stairs in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, according to police.
“She was going (to counseling) for her mother, and now she’s going for both her parents,” Etheridge told The News.
In an Instagram photo, McNair cuddles his daughter, wearing a paper crown, and declares her “Queen Charlie.”
McNair was battling for custody of his baby girl with Charlie’s maternal grandmother, Elizabeth Rivera, before he died.
And he also had filed a $30 million lawsuit against the city describing himself as the “proposed administrator” of Tonie Wells’ estate. The ongoing suit alleges police should have known Barry Wells was dangerous because his wife filed a harassment complaint against him in the spring of
2017, and that cops arrested Wells for attacking her Sept. 21, 2017, three months before he flung her to her death. Wells (right) is at Rikers Island, waiting for his trial to start July 16.
“The other grandmother wants her,” Etheridge told The News. “We’re not worried about the money. That money is nothing to me. That money is for college. For whatever Charlie wants to do. She has her whole life ahead of her.”
Rivera, who lives in Midtown Manhattan, conceded, “We are the middle of an ugly custody battle.“It’s beyond the kid," adding that McNair’s death is “painful for both families.” She declined to elaborate on the divisions between the clans, or the custody fight.
In court papers filed after her daughter died, Rivera painted McNair as a deadbeat dad and said he was using Charlie as a “pawn” to get his hands on the possible payout from the lawsuits against the city.
Charlie, in the middle of the tug-of-love, now navigates a little girl’s world that’s been tossed upside down.
“We’re holding up by the grace of God,” Etheridge said. “It’s about strength and faith. Charlie knows [her father] is gone, and it’s a hurting feel“Everybody ing. She’s always asking for him. She gets counseling. She needs it for both parents, to be honest. She knows both parents are gone.”
“It takes a while for her to get used to people.”
Etheridge won’t talk about the battle with Rivera for custody, saying only Charlie — whose last name she insists is McNair — can see her late mom’s family “every other weekend.” She didn’t elaborate on the legality of Charlie’s last name.
has to come together. She needs all of our support,” Etheridge said. And as Charlie grieves, so does Etheridge.
“I want justice for my son. He was well-loved, and a devoted father,” she told The News, saying a gun blast went through his heart and lungs.
“I have no idea who would do this,” she added. “I wish I did. He had an open heart for everyone. All he wanted to do was dance and have fun. He fought so hard for his daughMcNair’s ter.” killer remains at large, although police on Wednesday released a photo of a possible suspect.
“[This] is just compounding the tragedy of that poor child,” said lawyer Marvin Fuhrman, who was representing McNair in a custody battle. “Now both the parents have been murdered.”
The lawyer said McNair likely would have prevailed in his custody battle if he had lived.
“Randy was really showing up as a father,” Fuhrman said. “Absent extraordinary circumstances, he would have been given custody.”