Community raises over $15k for family of teens killed

He collapsed when he learned that his 18-year-old sister Madison Daly and his 19-year-old stepsister Kayden Lynch were shot and killed in a Christmas Eve shooting at their Beulah home in the 100 block of Lee Road 2113. Jalen Dashawn Holmes, 18, was charged with murder in the shooting.

The family said they were more than sisters. They were best friends that did everything together.

“When someone dies of cancer or something like they’re really old. You can try to prepare yourself mentally. You can be like, ‘I know this person’s gonna pass, and I’m gonna have to tell myself how to deal with it’,” Daly said. “Nobody ever expects to get a call that your sisters were murdered.”

Tyler, 27, is one of three siblings from his mom and his dad, Chris Daly. There is Tyler, Zach who is about one year younger, and Madison. Tyler said they had a difficult childhood and that their dad “was quite awful to us kids.” Tyler said he and his siblings spent several stints in the Department of Children and Family Services system. They are from Massachusetts originally, and Tyler currently lives in New Hampshire with his wife Helen and their daughter Corinne.

Through that difficult time, Tyler said he took on a parental role in a sense and took Madison under his wing. After his mom divorced his dad, she met Tim Lynch, and while the two are not married, they have become one big family. Tim and Kelly have twin daughters together. Much of Tyler’s family including Kelly, his grandmother, Tim and other Lynch family members moved to Alabama several years ago.

Tyler said he considered Kayden, Tim’s daughter, to be his stepsister. He is also close with Tim’s son and his stepbrother, Tyler Lynch. He said his difficult upbringing made it hard for him to welcome the new family at first, but he was able to find a strong relationship with Kayden.

“We had kind of just been around together for so long that I loved her just as much, and we all saw each other as family,” Tyler Daly said. “I know that Kayden and Maddie specifically had had some issues, but they had grown probably the strongest bond with each other. They had really become extremely close friends.”

Tyler said he and his mom had been talking on the phone about Madison maybe an hour before the shooting, specifically about Madison’s 2-year-old daughter Neveah. Tyler said as he is working through the grief, he is filled with regret and wishes he had said something on the call, like telling his mom to go wake up Madison, but he knows there is nothing he could have done. 

He said Madison and Kayden both faced their own challenges in their personal lives, with Madison becoming a mother at a young age and Kayden not being around the “right people.” For Madison, he said that when she was out of DCFS and became pregnant, she moved to New Hampshire to have her child there.

That brought Madison to Nellie Deblois, Tyler’s mother-in-law. Deblois said she met Madison at Tyler and Helen’s wedding, when Madison was just 12 or 13. Then some time later, Tyler told her that Madison was pregnant, and Deblois offered for Madison to live with them. She said it was an easy decision.

“I so admired that she chose to have the baby, as a Christian. And just me thinking about, I’m just a very compassionate person, and I empathetically was just thinking, how would I feel if I was 15 and I was pregnant and needed to be in a place where no one was judging me, and needed to be at a place where I felt safe and respected,” Deblois said. “And I knew I could offer her that.”

Deblois said she and her husband became Madison’s guardians to put her on her husband’s insurance, and they set it up so Madison could attend high school during the time she was with them. Deblois said the majority of Madison’s pregnancy she was with them in New Hampshire. She described Madison as intuitive, smart and someone that saw through people’s “crap,” and saw the truth in things.

Deblois thinks of Madison as another daughter, and she was in the delivery room when Madison gave birth. She said she was surprised when Madison asked her to cut the cord.

“When you’re there walking a woman through, any person through, the most amazing period of life, which is pregnancy and birth, there is the closest you get with that person. I always saw Maddie wanting to improve herself,” Deblois said. “She wanted to be the first person in her family to go to college…She just was very motivated by wanting to have a better lifestyle for her daughter.”

Deblois at home when she got the call from her daughter Helen, Tyler’s wife, telling her that Tyler needed her right now. Deblois said they spent time in each other’s arms crying and that this is the hardest death she has ever had to deal with.

Deblois said shortly after Nevaeh was born, Madison decided to return to Alabama. Deblois said they had stayed in touch in the years since and that Madison was recently accepted to a Catholic college for single mothers in Nebraska.

“I really totally believe that if this didn’t happen she would have gone to college next summer or next fall, 100%….and she wanted to be a psychologist, if you can believe that,” Deblois said. “She had really a horrible experience of one foster family, and she just wanted to get herself in a place where her daughter would never be in those such situations ever. And I just saw her as a great mom.”

Tyler said one of the hardest parts is seeing how much Madison worked to be a good parent to Neveah, and now she is gone.

“Watching my sister try to find the strength to better her life and then losing it. It’s hard, even at my age, it’s really hard to look at this and not feel like you can’t trust anything. Like the world’s just out for you in a weird way,” Tyler said. “Dealing with that because of how sudden it is, because of how just awful and brutal. It’s really difficult to try to even explain to you how I’m able to handle it.”

Tyler said the holidays made the entire situation more difficult, as he had to hear the news and then go into Christmas and be happy for his daughter.

“It would have hit hard anytime, but for me, the fact that we had to have Christmas the next day, and everybody’s opening presents, and we’re trying to have a good Christmas for our children,” Tyler said. “We didn’t want to have to ruin it. But for me and my step brother, Tyler, with his kids too, we had said that it was probably one of the most difficult things that we’ve ever had to do, is to put on a strong face for our family during Christmas.”

Tyler said his daughter does not fully understand what has happened yet and in some ways they do not either. It has been a very harsh healing process for him.

When looking back, some of his best memories of Madison were the quieter moments of them hanging out. Because she was in the DCFS system often, there were many moments where they visited her in the system.

Tyler said they often talked about music, and the first memory that came to mind was when Madison was pretty young and came into his room with a boom box to sing a song. Tyler said he was very young at the time as well, and he remembers that he started laughing because her singing was more like yelling at points. He feels bad about laughing, but he feels it was a cute moment when looking back.

“When she went to our wedding, I remember she sort of sheepishly asked my wife if she could dye her hair,” he said. “I remember my wife saying that it kind of put into perspective how young she is, and even though she’s had to become, sort of hardened through the life we’ve had, that deep down, she was just a little girl.”

Tyler said that those little moments were big for a family that went through a lot of dark times over the years.

“As for Kayden, it kind of goes the same way. When she came into our lives, she kind of just connected straight to the same family dynamic. So any memories that I could try to pull up that sound fun or like a sweet memory is really just us hanging out,” he said. “Just seeing them able to enjoy themselves, when we’re doing something that isn’t having us all angry at each other, just little things like that.”

Tyler said the family does not have a lot of money, and he was not even sure if he could afford to drive down to Alabama for the funeral, which he said will be more like a celebration of life for Madison and Kayden.

The day after Madison and Kayden were killed, he had the idea of starting a GoFundMe and brought the idea to his mom. The idea was to help cover the expenses that come with cremations and funeral, so that Kelly and Tim would not have to face the financial burden alone. There was also a personal reason that he wanted to step up.

“I kind of felt it in me because I felt so helpless in this. When something like this happens, you’re like, ‘I don’t know how to deal with my emotions or anything.’ So I felt like, if I was able to set up something to be able to raise money, it would just help me feel better that I was able to give that support,” Tyler said.

He said he started the GoFundMe on Christmas, while Tim’s sister Kathleen Kirby started one as well. Both fundraisers have been disabled to receive new donations. Tyler’s GoFundMe raised $8,495, and Kirby’s has raised $6,515. 

“I wasn’t really expecting to have this level of support. And it’s helped a lot, at least for me, to feel like a lot of people care about this,” Tyler said. “A lot of my family members keep telling me that they are constantly checking the GoFundMe, not just me, just so that they can see it and be amazed at how much support people are showing for both of them. They were loved so much.”

Tyler said a portion of the money raised will be put toward Madison’s daughter for when she turns 18. Tyler said he hopes people know how loved Madison and Kayden were and how their lives were cut short. 

“For this kid to go and not just take away a sister and a daughter, but to take away a mother, a little girl is left without her mom because of this. So I guess it feels important to me to note the immense loss here and how they deserve so much better and wanted better for themselves,” he said.