Grandmother Takes Final Photo of 'Happy and Carefree' Granddaughter, 3, Minutes Before She Is Killed (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Samantha Jensen shared the photo on TikTok, writing, “My mom took this picture at 4:47 pm and my daughter’s time of death was 4:52. My mom didn’t know she was capturing the last moments of her life. This one is really hard for me to look at, just knowing what comes next breaks my heart.”

Jensen, who is from Oldtown, Idaho, tells PEOPLE in an exclusive interview that she was out of town for a wedding on Oct. 7, 2022, and her mother, Jamie, was watching both Scarlett and her 2-year-old brother, Henry.

“That afternoon they went to get ice cream and enjoy a walk together,” Jensen says. “When they arrived home to our back driveway, Scarlett wanted to get out of the stroller to pick flowers. That’s when my mom took the last picture I have of her alive.”

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While she was walking in the family’s private driveway, a Chevy Tahoe came careening down the road, running all three of the family members to the ground.

“My mother was waving her hands, screaming for him to stop and she tried to grab my children to move them out of the way but he was going too fast,” Jensen recalls. “Scarlett was killed almost instantly and my mom and Henry were critically injured.”

Scarlett June Jensen.Samantha Jensen

Samantha Jensen

As localnews outlets reportedat the time, the suspect fled the scene on foot and was apprehended a few miles away. Jensen tells PEOPLE that the man is now serving 10 years in prison, with two years credited for time served during the court proceedings.

Meanwhile, Jensen’s son was fighting for his life as the result of the hit and run.

“Henry was life-flighted to the children’s hospital where they found a fractured spine, six broken ribs, a broken jaw, a broken collarbone, a liver laceration and several other injuries,” she tells PEOPLE. “My mom had several broken bones but was able to be released from the hospital.”

She continues: “Henry spent a week in the PICU before he was stable enough to come home, and he had a full body brace on for 10 weeks.”

It was weeks before Jensen realized her mom had taken a photo of Scarlett’s final moments, she says.

“My mom lost her phone when they were hit and it took us a while to find it, so when we finally did I was going through pictures and found that one,” Jensen says. “I looked at the timestamp and realized it was only five minutes before her declared time of death, so it must have been taken seconds before the person hit them.”

“Scarlett was the silliest, sweetest little girl,” the mom says. “She loved horses, unicorns, being a big sister, and the moviesFrozenandSpirit. She liked to play hide-and-seek, go to the park, go to preschool and play soccer.”

The last photo of Scarlett, seen here with Henry.Samantha Jensen

Now, Jensen adds, “the house feels so quiet and empty without her.”

The grief can be overwhelming, with some bad days and some more manageable.

“Some days, it feels like I am drowning, and some days I am able to tread water,” she says. “My whole family is putting in a lot of work in therapy and trying to heal as much as possible. My faith in the Lord has saved my life and helped me tremendously in my healing journey.”

Jensen adds that she’s opened up about the loss on social media as a way to show others “that it is okay to grieve loudly.”

“You don’t have to do it in silence. Talk about your people, scream their names loud and proud and never stop sharing their stories,” she says.

Seeing the photo of Scarlett taken shortly before her death was, at first, excruciating, Jensen says.

“It was extremely painful for me to look at in the beginning,” Jensen recalls. “How do you come to terms with the existence of a ‘last picture’ of your child?”

source: people.com