GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. — A woman is in custody 17 years after a Loganville mother of four died in Gwinnett County following silicone injections that police say she had no license to give.
Tamaira Angell Smith, 52, is charged with felony murder in the death of 29-year-old Eyanna Moore of Loganville. Officers in McKinney, Texas, arrested her on the Georgia warrant, and she has since been returned to Gwinnett County.
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Gwinnett County police say Smith injected silicone into Moore’s buttock in a room at a Holiday Inn Express near Stone Mountain on May 30, 2009, and took payment for it without a medical license.
Moore spent months checking Smith and another woman out first. They had a practice and letters after their names, and her family says she came away believing she was in good hands.
“She vetted some individuals that say they were medical professionals and they had the credentials behind their name and they had a medical practice,” said Yolanda Hammond, Moore’s aunt. “And we later found that all that was false.”
The work was supposed to happen at that practice, and Hammond says no one has explained why it moved to a hotel room instead.
“She called David, Ayana’s husband at the time, and said, ‘Come now, bring her yogurt, bring her Gatorade,’” Hammond said. “He had to stop and get that.”
He brought three of the kids with him.
Moore was still alive when David walked in. She pushed the yogurt away and told him she wanted to rest a minute. Then her color started to go. Smith was already gone.
“All she had to do was dial 911 from that room and say someone is injured and need help right away,” Hammond said.
David called the paramedics and had the children taken out of the room. Moore was pronounced dead a short time after she got to the hospital on May 31.
“My niece was a beautiful soul, she was extremely intelligent, she was smart, she was loved and she was kind,” Hammond said. “She was a beautiful young woman with four small children and a husband.”
Faith Moore was 8 that day, the oldest of the three children David brought with him.
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“Growing up from eight up until now to this day without a mom, it hurts so bad,” said Faith, now 26.
Smith checked in with David once more before she disappeared, according to family.
“She did call and ask David how she was doing and David told her she died and she cried,” Hammond said. “She cried on the phone and she hung up and we could never reach her again.”
David raised all four of them with help from family, and his youngest children say they appreciate what he gave them.
“He basically did it on his own,” said Tristan Moore, now 20. “None of us went down a bad road.”
Tristan was a toddler then. His sister Fantasia was small enough that what she has of her mother now comes secondhand, out of photo albums and other people’s stories.
“I can’t remember her voice,” Fantasia said. “I can only remember her face by pictures.”
Tatiyanna, the oldest of the four, is 28, a year younger than her mother was. After 17 years of no news, the family is now waiting on a Gwinnett County courtroom.
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“Regardless of the circumstances, justice is going to come,” she said. “At least that’s my hope.”
Police first charged Smith in June 2009 with practicing medicine without a license. The felony murder warrant came three months later.
Officer Darryl Saffold with the McKinney Police Department said officers found Smith after receiving information from a law enforcement partner. Their part was limited to confirming the Georgia warrant, he said.
“She can’t hurt anyone else the way that she has hurt our family,” Hammond said.
Smith is being held in the Gwinnett County Jail.
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