Passion Wimer died at age 10 in November 2024, while murder charges against her parents became public in October 2026.
HENDERSONVILLE, Tenn. — Nearly two years passed between the death of 10-year-old Passion Wimer and the arrests of her parents on first-degree murder charges, leaving a long stretch of the Sumner County investigation outside the public record reviewed so far.
Passion died Nov. 24, 2024, after spending days in Vanderbilt’s pediatric intensive care unit in Nashville. Howard Carrithers Wimer and Universe Wimer, identified in published records as her parents, were booked into the Sumner County Jail on Oct. 13, 2026. A grand jury indictment accuses them of causing the girl’s death during the perpetration or attempted perpetration of aggravated child neglect.
The timing has become one of the central features of the case. Publicly available reporting establishes Passion’s death in November 2024 and the parents’ arrests in October 2026, but it does not provide a complete account of what happened during the intervening investigation. The sources reviewed do not say when investigators concluded that criminal charges were warranted or when the case was first presented to prosecutors or the grand jury.
Both parents face a first-degree murder charge along with a child-related felony charge described in jail records as aggravated child abuse, neglect or endangerment. Published reporting on the indictment says the state alleges Passion’s death occurred during aggravated child neglect. Those are allegations that prosecutors must prove; neither parent has been convicted in the case.
Passion’s public obituary, published in February 2025, gives one of the few detailed accounts of her life and final hospitalization that appeared before the arrests. It said she was born Feb. 8, 2014, in Malibu, California, and described her as energetic and creative, with interests that included art, singing, dancing, swimming, games and travel. The obituary said she died at Vanderbilt after nearly a week on life support.
The obituary was written well before the criminal case became public and described Passion in affectionate family terms. It listed Howard and Universe Wimer as her surviving parents and announced a February 2025 memorial service and entombment at Hendersonville Memory Gardens. Nothing in the obituary itself established the criminal allegations that would emerge the following year.
By October 2026, the legal picture had changed sharply. Jail records show both Wimers were booked Oct. 13. Each booking lists two charges: first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse, neglect or endangerment. Each charge carried a listed $500,000 bond, bringing the recorded total to $1 million for each defendant.
The indictment places the alleged child neglect at the center of the homicide prosecution. Rather than treating Passion’s death and the neglect allegation as unrelated accusations, the state alleges the death occurred during the commission or attempted commission of aggravated child neglect. The precise evidence prosecutors intend to use to establish that claim has not been fully described in the verified public material reviewed for this article.
Some details circulating publicly about Passion’s condition before her death have not been repeated here because they could not be independently confirmed through sufficiently reliable source material. The established record supports the girl’s age, date of death, hospitalization, the identities of her parents, the indictment, the charges, the booking date and the listed bonds. Other medical and investigative details remain subject to further verification.
Earlier coverage said Howard and Universe Wimer were scheduled to be arraigned Nov. 6 in Sumner County. A reliable account of the outcome of that hearing was not located in the sources reviewed. Recent jail-roster results continue to list both defendants in custody, but subsequent court filings could change their custody status or provide new information about the case.
The unresolved period between Passion’s death and the indictment remains significant because it may contain much of the evidence underlying the charges. Until prosecutors, defense attorneys or court records make more of that material public, the circumstances developed during the investigation remain largely undisclosed. The criminal charges remain pending allegations, and both defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
Author note: Last updated November 10, 2026.