The Murder of Macy Grace Ditty
Victim Information
| Age at Death | 2 |
| Hometown | Fayetteville, NC |
| Date of Death | Dec. 4, 2015 |
Macy Grace Ditty was two years old, days short of her third birthday, when she died at Cape Fear Valley Regional Medical Center in Fayetteville, North Carolina. At the time of her death she was living with her mother, Jeanie Ditty, and her mother's boyfriend, Zachary Keefer, at an apartment complex in Fayetteville.
Both Jeanie Ditty and Macy's father were reported to be active-duty members of the U.S. Army at the time; Ditty was stationed at Fort Bragg. Macy's paternal grandmother, Tina Goodwin, spent more than a decade afterward pursuing justice for her granddaughter through two trials.
What We Know
On December 2, 2015, officers and paramedics responded to a 911 call reporting an unresponsive two-year-old at a Fayetteville apartment complex. Macy Grace Ditty was rushed to Cape Fear Valley Regional Medical Center, where medical staff found extensive bruising and trauma throughout her body, including head injuries from multiple impacts and a lacerated liver.
A CT scan showed non-survivable brain injuries that prosecutors said occurred within the previous eight to 24 hours, a window during which Jeanie Ditty, Macy's mother, was the sole caregiver with access to the child. Macy died at the hospital on December 4, 2015, days before her third birthday.
The North Carolina Office of the Chief Medical Examiner ruled Macy's death a homicide in March 2016. That same month, Jeanie Ditty and her boyfriend, Zachary Keefer, were arrested and charged with first-degree murder and felony child abuse inflicting serious bodily injury. Keefer was reported to be an Army Special Forces soldier stationed at Fort Bragg at the time.
At trial, the state's forensic pathologist testified that Macy had suffered at least 40 separate physical blows. As of September 2026, Jeanie Ditty has been convicted and sentenced; Zachary Keefer was never tried, and the charges against him were dismissed in 2019.
Case Timeline
The Investigation
The public record in this case includes the medical findings presented at trial, courtroom material from Ditty's 2026 retrial, and a series of composited photographs Ditty commissioned in the weeks after Macy's death, which prosecutors and news outlets later cited as part of the broader account of her conduct following the killing.
The Accused
This case has two separate outcomes. Jeanie Ditty was convicted of first-degree murder and felonious child abuse in August 2026, following a decade of proceedings that included a 2020 mistrial; she has filed an appeal with the North Carolina Court of Appeals. Zachary Keefer, originally charged alongside Ditty, was never tried. Prosecutors dismissed the charges against him in November 2019 after he had spent more than three years in custody.
Systemic Gaps and Case Context
Remembering Macy Grace
Macy Grace Ditty was two years old. She should have had a third birthday, a childhood, a whole life ahead of her. Instead her name has spent more than a decade attached to a courtroom, waiting for a verdict that finally came in 2026.
Her paternal grandmother, Tina Goodwin, carried that wait for her. For eleven years she showed up, first for a trial that ended without an answer, then for a second one that finally gave Macy's family the words "guilty" and "life without parole." That kind of patience, held for a child who can't ask for it herself, is its own quiet form of love.
Macy is remembered not for how her life ended, but for the fact that it happened at all: two years of being someone's daughter, someone's granddaughter, someone worth fighting a decade for.
