'Seeking the truth': Mom demands answers after teen daughter dies in custody of Tennessee group home

Shona Garner-White says she is "seeking the truth" nearly two weeks after her 17-year-old daughter died while in the custody of the Tennessee youth group home she had voluntarily sent her to for help.

Garner-White held a news conference in Memphis on Wednesday along with her attorney Benjamin Crump and other family members, demanding answers on behalf of her daughter, Alegend Jones, who died Nov. 17 at a hospital after being taken there from the Youth Villages facility in the Memphis suburb of Bartlett. Officials at the youth home said the teen died from a "medical emergency" while under their guardianship.

But Garner-White and Crump alleged that doctors told the family the teenager likely died from a "brain bleed."

Crump, a national civil rights attorney, and Garner-White alleged that Jones suffered fatal injuries under suspicious circumstances, claiming there was swelling in her head and bruises the mother said she found on her daughter in the hospital.

"I sent her to Youth Villages to get help and now they're sending my baby back in a casket," Garner-White said. "Youth Villages is supposed to help my kid. I'm never supposed to bury my kid, my kid is supposed to bury me."

The Bartlett Police Department and the Tennessee Department of Children's Services said the teen's death remains under investigation.

"The Department of Children's Services is saddened any time there is loss of life involving a youth. We can confirm an investigation has commenced, and we are working alongside our law enforcement partners on this case," the Department of Children's Services said in a statement to ABC News.

Results of an autopsy performed by the Shelby County Medical Examiner have not been released.

Crump said the family has retained a forensic pathologist to conduct an independent autopsy, adding his team is "putting the puzzle together to get to the truth so we can get justice for this child -- this 17-year-old child."

Officials at Youth Villages, which runs several group homes for troubled youth in the Memphis area, would only confirm that the incident occurred at "one of our campuses on Thursday, Nov. 16."

"A young person in our care experienced a medical emergency. We do not know the cause of the medical emergency," Youth Villages said in a statement that was updated on Nov. 23.

The company said the young patient "received immediate medical attention" and died after being hospitalized.

Youth Villages officials said that due to confidentiality laws involving children who receive mental and behavioral health care, they could not discuss individual cases or health issues related to young people in their care.

In a new statement sent to ABC News Wednesday, Youth Villages said, "There were no abusive or otherwise inappropriate interactions directed toward the young person."

Garner-White said she sent Jones to Youth Villages a little over two months ago to get her daughter help for mental issues.

She said she placed her daughter under the guardianship of the Department of Children and Family Services "because I asked for help, not because I did anything wrong."

"I asked DCFS for help because my daughter had mental health issues and we agreed that I would keep custody, they would do guardianship," Garner-White said.

She claims that her daughter was sexually assaulted at the age of 14 and suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, manic depression and was bipolar.

Garner-White said her daughter was initially taken from the youth home to a hospital where they say she was refused treatment and then transferred to Methodist Hospital in Memphis.

The mother said doctors kept Jones on life support and did numerous tests before informing her there was nothing more they could do. On Nov. 17, Garner-White said she asked doctors to remove Jones from life support.

"That's the type of death a mother should never have to go through," Garner-White said. "If it would have been a natural death, I still would have been devastated, but to see the bruises and the bleeding, to hear the neurologist say she's bleeding on the brain, and the lack of oxygen, no mother should have to go through that."