Father of Powell murder victim shares how he learned his daughter was missing

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WATE) — It's been three weeks since 13-year-old Savannah Copeland was found dead, and her family is sharing about the heart wrenching moments they learned she was gone.

The teen's body was discovered on a trail in the Broadacres subdivision on October 22. A 15-year-old boy was arrested and charged with second-degree murder. While the case is moving through the criminal justice system, Savannah's family is left navigating the devastating loss.

Savannah's father, Michael Copeland, spoke with 6 News' Lori Tucker Wednesday, sharing that his daughter enjoyed tumbling, and she was determined to become a college level cheerleader.

"She just loved it. It brought out that joy," he said. "She wanted to be one of the girls that did the tumbling in the front and we got her doing private lessons with people who were coaches and she worked over and she worked so hard at it. She actually ended up getting a stress fracture in her back that put her out for months and months and months. And so we got her doing strength training with the right kind of person, she was very devoted to that and wanted to get back to doing those again."

He also shared that she loved art.

Copeland told 6 News he first learned Savannah was not home on October 22 in a call from his wife. He had gotten up before everyone else as he usually did and took the call as he was pulling into work.

"She said that she [Savannah] wasn't in her bed when they got up," he said. "So we, I drove back. There's an app that you can get called Life360 where you can, and it actually shows you where their phone goes, so we could see the path that she took and what time it was."

The app showed the family that she went missing sometime between midnight and 2:30 a.m., but did not show them where exactly she was, he explained. They spent the morning searching for Savannah and knocking on doors to see if someone's doorbell camera might have caught where she went, but they didn't find anything.

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Copeland said his daughter's body was discovered by a teenager walking on the trail that day. He shared when he heard sirens, he knew they had to be for his daughter.

Now, along the same trail stands a memorial. Copeland said the memorial and community's support is uplifting, but there is still a lot of anger.

"Anger is ok. It's a natural emotion. We need to be angry and I am very angry. I don't show it, but I am angry at a number of people," he said, explaining that there he also has anger wondering why his daughter went out that night. "She's never gone out as far as I know. I could look at her Life360 every single day and I could see she didn't sneak out, she never went out. We never had to worry about that. She was, generally speaking, terrified to go out."

He said it was a shock that she would have gone out and he's angry at the person who hurt her, but he also said he realizes that going down that road of talking about his anger can easily turn toward hatred and rage. When asked if he thinks he will ever be able to forgive, he said:

"I do. Forgiveness is a wonderful word. When these kinds of things happen, we talk about forgiving it – not at all that that person deserves [it] – it is almost entirely because we are done letting that persons crimes control who we are."

Copeland added that one day, he hopes to build a more permanent memorial on the pathway where Savannah's body was found.

Just a few days after Savannah's death, a judge released the juvenile petition against the 15-year-old suspect charged with her murder . That document identified the suspect as Malakiah Harris and alleged that he met up with Savannah around midnight on October 22, stabbed her, and left without telling anyone.

On Wednesday Harris appeared in court. At that hearing, the state revealed that it intends to try Harris as an adult.