Gadsden, Tennessee, Usa - July 2020
In July 2020, a tragic event unfolded in the parking lot of a gym in Gadsden, Tennessee, where 18-year-old Grant Solomon died in what was officially deemed a freak accident. The circumstances surrounding his death were as bizarre as they were heartbreaking, with only one witness present: Grant’s father, Aaron Solomon. Aaron was already under intense scrutiny due to years of serious allegations of abuse and mistreatment from his ex-wife, Angelia. An investigation was swiftly opened and then closed, immediately igniting social media outrage over what many perceived as an injustice.
This case, however, extends far beyond a simple accident investigation. It delves into layers of questions about potential large-scale corruption, the gaslighting of an abuse survivor by local and state officials, and even the complicity of family members. Most shocking are the implications that numerous individuals may have deliberately ignored horrific allegations from a child, including accusations of attempted murder and possibly the killing of Grant Solomon himself. While there are two vastly different sides to this story, the truth, as it so often is, is far from black and white.
Aaron Solomon was once a familiar face in Nashville, having spent 15 years as a sports reporter and morning news anchor for WSMV TV. Around 2011, he transitioned into a career as a financial advisor for prominent investment banks like Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch. Outwardly, Aaron appeared to have a life of success, married to Angelia, a doctor of Pharmacy, and together they had two beautiful children. Angelia had eventually stepped back from her career to become a full-time mother, painting a picture of Solomon family bliss.
However, this idyllic image shattered in 2013 when Aaron filed for divorce. What followed was a contentious battle over child custody and financial support. The couple was deeply in debt, Aaron having already declared bankruptcy once, and both were unemployed at the time. Yet, finances became the least of their worries.
During the 2013 divorce proceedings, and for years thereafter, Angelia vocalized very serious allegations of abuse against Aaron. She claimed that she and both of their children were victims. The situation in their home had allegedly escalated to such a degree that, only days before Aaron filed for divorce, Angelia accused him of trying to kill her. Despite Angelia describing her home life as a “living nightmare,” the judge overseeing their divorce initially awarded custody of the children to Aaron. Over the years, Angelia routinely lost visitation rights with her children, and the custody disputes, along with the allegations of Aaron’s behavior, persisted. It seemed no one was willing to help the Solomon children escape their father.
Eventually, both children ignored a court order and ran away from their father’s home to live with their mother. By 2020, Grant, the eldest, had just turned 18. He was described as tall, athletic, fun-loving, and possessing a big heart. A star baseball player, he was also a fiercely protective older brother to Gracie, who was four years his junior and also an active and loving child. Having just reached legal adulthood, it was said that Grant was actively seeking to win custody of his younger sister, aiming to protect Gracie where the courts had allegedly failed his mother. Angelia claimed that her son had been a witness to her attempted murder back in 2013, making him acutely aware of what his father was supposedly capable of.
On the morning of July 20, 2020, Grant Solomon met with his father. Angelia stated that the two had not spent time together in approximately two years. Grant had a private pitching session booked at the Ward Performance Institute in Gadsden, about 50 miles from his home in Franklin, and he agreed to meet his father there.
What transpired next is primarily known through Aaron Solomon’s account. He stated that he arrived first, parked his truck, and waited for Grant to pull into the lot behind him. Grant then parked next to his father’s vehicle. They had arrived early, so there was no rush to go inside. According to Aaron, he used this time to check work emails on his phone before exiting his vehicle. When he looked up from his device, Grant’s truck was no longer beside his. Aaron believed that Grant had gotten out of the front cab of the truck to retrieve his baseball gear from either the back seat or the truck bed. Then, the vehicle somehow shifted gears, or perhaps it was never in park, and it rolled backward, dragging Grant across the pavement, down a hill, and into a ditch.
Less than 10 minutes after arriving at the facility, Aaron called 911 from the parking lot. Looking down at the truck in the ditch, he frantically told the operator that his son was trapped underneath the vehicle and desperately needed immediate assistance. On the call, Aaron stated, “my son’s truck backed over him and he it’s rolled over him and drag him into the ditch and it’s on top of him he’s trapped under the truck”. He added, “he somehow I drug him underneath it”. When asked if his son was alert, Aaron responded, “no I don’t think so he’s not a he’s not alert right no he’s out and he’s trapped I got three guys here and he’s trapped under the truck”. Aaron sporadically called down to these men, who he said were next to Grant in the ditch, reporting that his son was lying face up between the front two tires of the truck. He clarified that Grant was not working on the truck, but had just been getting out of it. Aaron speculated that it was “on an incline and I guess he didn’t have it in park or something or it wasn’t engaged”. He repeatedly stated that Grant was not responding and was still trapped.
When Emergency Services arrived, they found Grant on his back under the truck, unconscious. The vehicle was lifted with difficulty, and Grant was rushed to the hospital, but tragically, he did not survive his injuries.
An employee from the gym facility emerged from the building and observed that the vehicles were parked oddly in the lot. He reported seeing Aaron Solomon pacing back and forth on his cell phone, with three other men present. However, the limited police report made available from the incident stated that no other witnesses were located, and the men, thought to be construction workers, had left the scene before police arrived. The employee later recalled seeing the cars parked “sideways” and the truck already in the ditch with Grant’s dad on the phone. He identified the other individuals as “three-ish people” who looked like construction workers, wearing “hi-vis” gear. He noted that police cars and fire trucks arrived a few minutes later.
Crucially, there were no security cameras at the facility or anywhere nearby that would have captured the events. Aaron Solomon remained the sole witness to his son’s death. He later provided his ex-wife with a detailed explanation on video. He described looking down at his phone, then back up to see Grant “literally like right here closing this about to open this”. He assumed Grant was just going to retrieve his gear. Aaron then explained that he got out of his car, looked around the parking lot, and did not see Grant. He started to walk down the hill, first looking through the windshield of the truck to see if Grant had hopped back in, then realizing he was not standing outside. He found the front of the truck in the ditch and saw Grant’s red shirt and head, noting that Grant was angled, and not perfectly perpendicular, with his head and feet not covered by the front wheels.
Hospital staff recorded a laceration with bleeding on the back of Grant’s head and three bruises: one on his jaw, one near his left hip, and one on his right thigh. This basic medical report noted no punctures, fractures, bleeding, or any other wounds beyond those three bruises and the single head laceration. Aaron Solomon stated that doctors told him his son had suffered significant internal damage, consistent with the accident as described. However, documentation of these internal injuries and others appeared to be lacking. For instance, there seemed to be no record of burns, which might be expected from contact with a hot vehicle that had just been driven for over an hour.
It remained unclear how Grant became stuck on the underbelly of the vehicle or which parts of his body came into contact with the truck. Aaron speculated that Grant’s “chest and abdomen area was trapped by the axle”. A thorough reconstruction of the event would be necessary to determine what other injuries should have been expected. Grant was ostensibly dragged approximately 60 feet across the asphalt while wearing a t-shirt and shorts. Yet, the report appeared to omit the types of cuts and abrasions one would typically expect in such a scenario.
After Grant was pulled from the scene, photos showed bloodied rocks near the truck. Additional photos of responding emergency personnel revealed a ditch filled with long, tall grass that appeared largely undisturbed, suggesting the truck had not rolled through it. Furthermore, photos posted online suggested a tire track on the far side of the pavement. If this image were accurate, it would imply the truck drove forward from the road, not backward from the parking lot. This image, however, was unverified and unclear. It had also been widely reported that the truck was found in park with the keys still in the ignition, though the available police report did not address this specific point. The fate of all of Grant’s clothing remained unclear, though his shoes and socks, reportedly undamaged, were returned to his mother, showing no signs of what had occurred.
In the immediate aftermath of Grant’s death, Aaron declined an autopsy. The police released the white pickup truck back into his possession without conducting a forensic examination. These decisions left significant gaps in the death investigation, which was subsequently closed. The Gadsden police determined Grant Solomon’s death was an accident.
Angelia found the decision made by the Gadsden police unacceptable. The circumstances of Grant’s death were both bizarre and suspicious, with no indication that the truck had malfunctioned. Despite explanations from others, largely those close to Aaron, about doctors finding internal injuries, Angie firmly believed that the forensic evidence did not align with Aaron’s story. Dr. Solomon was convinced there was a clear motive for Aaron to kill his son, citing years of abuse the family had allegedly suffered at his hands. She claimed that Grant had acted as a protector for both her and Gracie, enduring years of psychological and sometimes physical abuse from his father. At the time of his death, Grant had reportedly been discussing with friends his plans to testify against his father as an adult, even going so far as attempting to win custody of his younger sister.
For years, Angelia had sought assistance from authorities in Franklin, Williamson County, and across Tennessee. In 2018, she contacted County Sheriff Jeff Long on Facebook, expressing fears for her own life and her children’s. Only months later, deputies from the same Sheriff’s Office arrived at her house to remove the children from her custody once more and return them to her ex-husband. Reports to the Department of Child Protective Services (DCS) yielded no positive results for Angelia. By the time of Grant’s death, Angelia had been legally barred by court order from filing any more legal claims against her ex-husband for a full six years, until Gracie reached the age of 18.
Angelia attributed the authorities’ consistent dismissal of her numerous serious claims to Aaron Solomon’s connections. Grace Chapel, the church Aaron attended, was also frequented by several high-powered individuals, including State Governor Bill Lee and Senator Jack Johnson. Notably, Jack Johnson’s wife, Deanna Johnson, was the judge who had ruled against Angelia, barring her from continuing to file claims against her ex-husband in court. With the court system seemingly against her, DCS investigations closed without action, and no other means to be heard, Angelia turned to the media. With the help of friends and concerned supporters, she launched a social media campaign to draw attention to Grant’s case and her allegations of abuse. She questioned, “why would authorities cover um for Aaron Solomon Solomon if what you say is true if if the forensics showed otherwise why would anybody cover for um you know for your son’s father”. Angelia stated that Grant’s death was “just a continuation of the pattern of life that we lived from 2013 till that day um in July 20th 2020 um under Aaron Solomon’s control”. She lamented, “why no one helped ever at any point why no one stopped and stepped out of the circle and helped Gracie and Grant just as children on their own”. She pointed to a “forensic evaluation and interview on file at the Williamson County Sheriff’s Department that was arrestable and they let it go”.
Angelia and her supporters established a series of social media accounts to propagate their message, calling their movement “Freedom for Gracie,” highlighting the tragic situation Grant’s younger sister faced after his death. Additional postings appeared under the name “Justice for Grant”. Gracie herself believed that her father had killed her brother. Custody arrangements between her parents remained unclear, but Gracie had vocalized her refusal to live with her father for years, often running back to her mother. Heartbreakingly, in 2021, Gracie posted a video entitled “A Cry For Help,” which has garnered over 160,000 views. In it, the young teenager detailed years of alleged abuse, directly calling her father a “rapist” and a “killer”. She stated, “my brother died protecting me from my father Aaron Solomon”. Gracie also expressed her fear of her father, saying “I’m so scared of that I’ve seen him do terrible things”.
Since the divorce in 2013, claims of abuse against Aaron Solomon had been made in four different courts and instigated at least seven separate child welfare investigations. All of these claims were closed without any action being taken. Along with Grace Chapel Church, its associated school, Grace Christian Academy, where Gracie attended, came under fire for allegedly ignoring her claims and failing to report what she had told them, despite a legal obligation to report any reasonable concern to authorities. Widely circulated recordings of school staff discussing the issue painted a picture of officials more concerned with the institution’s image than the safety of a student. They seemed to prefer the subject not be openly discussed, with one staff member saying, “I just don’t want it to like become the talk of the school to grow a life of its own we we want to for how do we contain this so that I don’t want to you know like I don’t want to bring that bring a lie to it when people don’t know”. The Headmaster of Grace Christian Academy, Robbie Mason, has been specifically targeted by the Freedom for Gracie movement for allegedly failing to protect his students.
Outrage over the apparent corruption of the legal system, the failure of social services, and seemingly morally bankrupt religious and educational institutions has understandably intensified. Critics argue that the administration of Grace Christian Academy failed the Solomon children, leading to one of them being dead while Aaron Solomon remains free. Some online comments suggest that if “you sit beside the governor of Tennessee at church you can get away with anything”. Accusations of Aaron Solomon being a “child predator and a child murderer” have been widely circulated. There have been online calls for Aaron Solomon to lose his role as a financial advisor, to be jailed, and worse.
In response to these accusations, in 2021, following the release of Gracie’s video, Aaron filed a defamation lawsuit against approximately 20 named individuals. These defendants included his ex-wife, Angelia, and friends of his children, along with their parents, who had been involved with the social media accounts. Although the central false claim in his lawsuit relates to Gracie’s video statement and the movement bearing her name, his daughter is not listed among the defendants. Aaron Solomon asserted that Angelia is primarily responsible for the negative and accusatory social media campaign against him. He believed she wrote most or all of the online posts, posing as someone else to present her views as third-person facts, and that his daughter is a victim of “Parental Alienation”.
This argument appeared to have been building against Dr. Angelia Solomon for some time, dating back to the initial days of the divorce. Judge Smith, who initially ruled that both children should stay with Aaron and be temporarily removed from contact with their mother, was distinct from Judge Johnson, who arguably had a conflict of interest. Judge Smith heard Angelia’s testimony regarding the night she alleged her then-husband tried to kill her.
A few facts about the alleged attempted murder were not disputed. Angelia stated she found herself in the shower of their bathroom in Franklin around 2:00 a.m. on May 10th. There was a blow dryer in the shower, resting at the bottom, with its prong sticking up and tied to the shower nozzle, and she had the cord of a hair dryer around her neck. Aaron found her, revived her, and subsequently called her parents, taking her for psychiatric treatment the next day. But was this an attempted murder, or, as Aaron would claim, a staged suicide?
In the 2013 divorce hearing, Aaron’s attorney argued that Angelia had staged the scene for attention, and that text messages exchanged between the two in the hours after the incident proved this. Angelia had seemingly admitted as much at that time, suggesting there was never a murder attempt, only an elaborate lie constructed afterward. Text messages presented to Judge Smith to compel the truth from Angelia in writing included a lie from Aaron, where he claimed to have taken a photo of her in the shower before helping her. Angelia’s text back read: “you took a picture before you tried to help me that just shows me where this has gone I staged that anyway but who cares use it against me all I wanted was to be loved nothing more unfortunately I wouldn’t kill myself but you would memorialize is my faking it to get attention and use it against me instead of love me”.
When questioned, Angelia testified that she did not believe she wrote those revealing texts. According to the court record, Judge Smith left the courtroom to read the exchange directly from her phone, which had been preserved as evidence. He returned and determined that she was being untruthful. In a later email, the court recorded Angelia again writing to Aaron about the same shower incident: “I made a bad choice for attention but I expect I accept responsibility for that choice and have learned why I did it and won’t repeat it”. When asked if she wrote that email, Angelia testified that this statement and similar ones were an attempt to get her husband to come home. In multiple texts to Aaron, she threatened to hurt herself, stating in court that she knew this would make him return.
After Grant’s death, Angelia reverted to her original version of this event on social media, disregarding her court testimony, and now claimed it was, in fact, an attempted murder. Many claims on the “Freedom for Gracie” website conflicted with the court record. Dr. Solomon herself testified that she was trying to win her husband back in May 2013, but the website stated she was trying desperately to leave him for years before the divorce. She sought a protective order against him after the shower incident in 2013 but later dropped it. Angelia now stated online and in interviews that Grant “saw the whole thing happen in the shower”. However, she said nothing about him as a witness in order to protect him, a statement that contradicts both her protective order and her testimony under oath to Judge Smith, who was told both children were asleep in their rooms and never came out, meaning Grant saw nothing.
Angelia also targeted her immediate family on the website, depicting her father, Dan Huffines, as controlling and abusive. She claimed to have been pressured by him to drop the protective order against Aaron, attributing quotes to him like “a husband can do what he wants to his wife”. Conversely, Judge Smith wrote that Mr. Huffines was a “very believable person” in his testimony. The ostensibly concerned father testified, “I am going to tell you this because I love my daughter she’s a compulsive liar I can never expect to have a conversation with her unless there’s some untruths that’s going to be told unless something is going to be stretched I know my daughter needs psychological help I know that”. Her mother also testified to this effect, but Angelia claimed both parents had ulterior motives, having treated her horribly as a child, with her sister witnessing the abuse. In response, her sister, Julie, submitted an affidavit stating, “I am unable to understand why Angie makes these false statements but can only attribute it to mental illness,” asserting they had a happy childhood and loving parents.
It was not only family members who contradicted Angelia’s version of events; she herself did not help her case when giving testimony. Angelia told the judge she had not been the source of numerous claims to DCS about Aaron and the children. However, the DCS representative at the hearing, as well as the department’s documentation, showed this to be false. Reports about Aaron to Child Services eventually became so frequent that years later, a court in Williamson County deemed them an “abusive civil action” and barred Angelia from bringing any new claims for a period of six years, until Gracie turned 18.
After hearing from all witnesses, Judge Smith made his ruling, stating simply, “Miss Solomon I do not believe you”. He also admonished her for a plea for funds posted on Facebook, in which she claimed she needed to raise money because her soon-to-be ex-husband had “taken her babies” and “kidnapped the children,” a post that raised nearly $4,000. Judge Smith asked, “why would you tell people he had stolen your babies I mean I signed a restraining order ma’am if anybody is to blame it is me”. Angelia claimed someone had broken into her Facebook account and she had nothing to do with it. The judge further believed she had been finding ways to message her children in violation of a restraining order. A message found on her device, sent to Grant’s iTouch, instructed her son to delete all messages from her after reading them. Although the device with that message was presented to her in court, Angelia denied writing it.
Aaron Solomon testified that his greatest concern about even supervised visits between Angelia and the kids was what she would say to them about him, as he believed she had a “serious problem with lying”. He cited an instance on the morning after the shower incident, where Angelia allegedly told the children over breakfast that their father had left in the middle of the night to be with another woman, a claim he testified was the worst he had directly heard her make about him. Faced with these contradictions, untruths, and serious concerns regarding her mental health, Judge Smith concluded, “I am concerned about the safety of these children even in a supervised situation”. His written decision months later stated that “the court finds the real issue here is whether Miss Solomon is dealing in reality”. He ordered that Angelia could not see the children until she underwent a psychiatric evaluation. Dr. Solomon repeatedly fought back against her husband’s claims of mental instability, admitting to seeking treatment from more than one psychiatrist, but only for an “unhealthy marriage”. Angelia claimed that after the court-appointed psychiatrist submitted his report, it was disregarded by the same judge who ordered it, stating it found her to be a “loving caring and capable mother”. Her separation from the children was temporary, visitation was slowly reinstated, and eventually, the children would run away from their father’s care to live with their mother.
In one of several videos posted by “Justice for Grant,” Angelia explained how she arrived at the cemetery to find her son’s grave cleared of all markers, flowers, baseball memorabilia, and other items left by mourners. She alleged that Aaron had wanted the grave to be unmarked and further accused him of threatening to move his son to a different resting place, something he could do because he had paid for the plot. She recounted a conversation with the groundskeeper: “Mr Solomon came and told me he wanted everything cleared and he said so I did I I cleared it all off and it’s in a box up there in the at the Memorial Home”. Angelia claimed that by Tennessee law, if a child is buried, both parents own half, but Aaron believed he owned Grant and the spot and could do what he wanted. She stated Grant’s grave was the only one completely cleared.
Angelia then claimed that Aaron had purchased plots for her and Gracie, as well as himself, a move she linked to an alleged murder-suicide scheme, fearing for her life. She stated that on October 6th, shortly after a counseling session where she and the children stated they would never be a family with him again, “he had gone in and set up the payments for the plots and he had put my name on plot three and Gracie’s on plot one and his on plot four”.
However, Pam Stevens, the funeral director at Williamson Memorial, a local Franklin, Tennessee, Funeral Home and Cemetery, stated that in July 2020, the day after Grant’s death, she assisted Aaron Solomon, alongside his ex-wife who was present, to select Grant’s burial plot. At the same time, all family plots were selected, and a deposit was made with Angelia’s knowledge and approval. On October 6th, Aaron did return to pay the balance on the plots and sign the contract as agreed. Pam also legally declared that the items were removed from Grant’s grave in order to mow the area, and Angelia was notified of this at the time. According to Pam’s signed affidavit, Angelia then chose to take the temporary marker from the grave herself, after which she began taking pictures of the unmarked plot and claiming that Aaron was responsible.
The white pickup truck remained in Aaron Solomon’s possession for months after Grant’s death. According to his ex-wife, he had the vehicle written off and sent to a scrapyard, and she was not informed of these decisions. She eventually tracked it down and had it submitted for analysis. Portions of a report from the vehicle’s computer, referred to as the “black box,” have been published by “Justice for Grant”. The “black box actually shows that someone was in the driver’s seat that there was weight in the driver’s seat in the last 3 seconds and that the accelerator pedal was pushed in and the steering wheel was being operated and turned sharply to the right which matches the tire pattern then it was turned it was placed in park and turned off and the weight got out of the vehicle”. The proponents of “Justice for Grant” argued, “Grant couldn’t have been the one in the last 3 seconds to get out because he was under there so the Black Box told us everything so we have all of the evidence we just don’t have an open investigation”. If this report is to be believed, the data revealed a driver was accelerating before the truck made impact with the ditch. The driver-side seatbelt was fastened, and both acceleration and brake were used in maneuvering the vehicle. The data as published suggested that someone was purposefully navigating the truck when it struck Grant Solomon. It remained unclear if this report was part of the information provided to ADA Blandon and the Gadsden police when they reopened the case in 2021.
In March 2021, Assistant District Attorney Ronald Blandon wrote a letter to Dr. Solomon’s attorney regarding the conclusion of the second investigation into Grant Solomon’s death. The assertions from “Freedom for Gracie” and “Justice for Grant” omitted reference to this reopening of the investigation. ADA Blandon wrote that the case was reopened at Angelia Solomon’s request, aided by newly sourced materials and potential evidence she had acquired. However, the details provided by the ADA in the letter were very limited. He wrote only that the new information was compared to the original case file, that the investigators from 2020 had been interviewed, and that the investigation had been “thorough”. There was no mention of an exhumation for an autopsy, no crime scene reconstruction, and no forensic evaluation of the pickup truck.
Before Grant left that morning, he reportedly stopped at the door and said something profoundly out of character: “Mom I don’t want to die in Gadsden today”. Angelia speculated he might have been referring to his lungs due to recovering from COVID-19 and needing x-rays. She thought about going with him, but he told her no. An hour later, she received a phone call.
Aaron Solomon’s defamation claim is still pending in Tennessee courts. Regarding the accusation that he murdered his son, the lawsuit points out that the accident occurred “in broad daylight during regular business hours just feet away from an open and operational business and in Clear View of a busy road”. Aaron asserts that the false claims are being made partly to solicit money. Two GoFundMe pages are currently linked to the “Freedom for Gracie” and “Justice for Grant” social media accounts. One seeks funds to pursue evidence for the alleged murder “in order to independently and properly investigate Grant’s death,” and it has raised over $130,000. The second is a legal fund for Gracie, who, according to the account, has hired her own legal counsel at the age of 16 to pursue charges against her father; this account has raised almost $40,000.
The latest shocking development in the case was published by The Daily Mail in mid-April 2024. Dr. Solomon told the paper that back in 2020, she discovered the Williamson Memorial Funeral Home, under Pam Stevens’ control, had allegedly broken her son’s ankles to fit him into a smaller coffin. She claimed to have seen this herself at a visitation, though no one else present at that visit has reported witnessing this. The Tennessee Board of Funeral Directors and Embalmers reportedly overheard the complaint, but told the publication there was “no evidence other than the mother’s recollection”. To date, the death investigation has not been reopened for a third time. District Attorney Lawrence Whitley has stood by previous statements from his office, clarifying that the case has been examined more than once, though he offers no further detail on what evidence was considered. He added, “I prosecute anything that is feasible to prosecute but this is not this was a parking lot accident”. A petition on change.org calling for the case to be reopened has garnered over 325,000 signatures. Last year, Gracie was again removed from her mother’s custody and placed under DCS care. Grant Solomon would have turned 22 years old in June 2024.
Despite the numerous allegations, inconsistencies, and widespread public concern, Ronald Blandon concluded that it was a horrible accident. Based on a lack of evidence, the state of Tennessee officially declined to pursue criminal charges in this matter.