Ryan Lawrence of Syracuse poses for a snapshot with his daughter Maddox Lawrence in an undated photo. An Amber Alert was issued for Maddox on Sunday, Feb. 21, 2016 when she disappeared with her father, Ryan Lawrence.

By Marnie Eisenstadt, Patrick Lohmann and John O'Brien

Syracuse, N.Y. -- When Ryan Lawrence did the morning pastry deliveries for

all the Freedom of Espresso stores around Syracuse, baby Maddox went with him.

He'd never leave her in the car, said Anna Dobbs, the chain's owner.

Instead, he'd carry her with one arm and the boxes of sweets with the other. Then he'd put her back in her car seat, and dad and daughter would drive on to the next store as the sun rose.

On other days, Ryan Lawrence and his wife, Morgan, were driving Maddox to New York City to get treatment for a deadly cancer growing in her eye.

A year later, Ryan Lawrence is charged with killing that same child he worked so hard to help save. The horrific crime seized Central New York's attention for days.

On Feb. 20, Ryan Lawrence and Maddox dropped off Morgan Lawrence at Destiny USA for her job in a clothing boutique. Morgan Lawrence expected the two to come back for her after 10 p.m. in the family car.

But that never happened.

Instead, Ryan Lawrence left the car for his wife with the keys in it. At their home in Syracuse's Valley neighborhood, she found a note indicating he might harm himself and their baby. Police issued an Amber Alert the next morning, Feb. 21, and began searching the Inner Harbor of Syracuse and Baldwinsville, Ryan Lawrence's hometown.

For more than two days, highway signs, phones and televisions flashed the alert. Media outlets described the child's clothing: a white shirt with brown puppies and a pink collar. A gray hat with pom poms. A pink coat with a blue interior.

But Maddox Mary Lawrence was already dead. She was killed sometime after she and her father dropped her mother at the mall for work that Saturday afternoon. Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick said Ryan Lawrence, 24, killed the child at Tinker Falls in Cortland County.

Ryan and Maddox Lawrence in a photo taken recently.

What could have made a man who appeared to be a doting

father kill his own child and then walk around, for two days, as police

searched for her?

A picture is emerging of a young couple under pressure. They struggled financially, relying on a series of cobbled-together, low-wage jobs. At the same time, Maddox was fighting cancer that required the young family to go to New York City weekly for treatments.

"They were two young kids struggling," Dobbs said.

And there are hints that at some point Ryan Lawrence's struggle had started to become a source of trouble. When state police issued the Amber Alert, they described him as emotionally unstable with a history of mental illness.

On Friday, Syracuse.com learned that Syracuse police had been called to deal with Lawrence more than once at least a year ago. State police spokesman Beau Duffy said details about those encounters alerted state police to his history of possible mental health issues.

Ryan Lawrence was never arrested as a result of those incidents, and Syracuse police provided no more information about them.

The message Ryan left for Morgan indicated that he was suffering from some kind of "mental impairment" when he wrote it, said Syracuse police Sgt. Richard Helterline.

And District Attorney William Fitzpatrick offered this possible explanation: Ryan Lawrence was jealous of the attention Maddox was receiving.

Ryan Lawrence and Morgan Forster met while working at the mall. They both worked on and off at a tea store and Morgan worked at two clothing stores.

Morgan became pregnant with Maddox while she and Ryan were dating, friends said. The couple married.

They lived in a rented home and shared a single car. They were always together, Dobbs said. "He and Momo were inseparable," she said, using Morgan's nickname.

They shared a love of the outdoors. Morgan Lawrence's Facebook page says she does nature photography. Ryan Lawrence loved hiking and camping, Dobbs said.

Ryan and Morgan Lawrence were both in the middle of the pack in high school and seemed to have a wandering path when they graduated.

Ryan Lawrence graduated from C.W. Baker High School in 2009. The year before was his first encounter with the pain of cancer. His mother, Mary Lawrence, died in 2008 from kidney cancer. Ryan was the baby of the family.

Ryan Lawrence went on to take two semesters at Monroe Community College in 2009 and 2010, but dropped out, according to the Democrat and Chronicle. He took two more classes at Onondaga Community College in 2011. In addition to working at the mall, Ryan Lawrence also worked at Pastabilities restaurant, Syracuse Food Co-Op and the circulation department of The Post-Standard.

Morgan graduated from Liverpool High School in 2011. She sang second alto in the school choir. After graduation, she worked a series of retail jobs.

Before Maddox's first birthday, the couple noticed that one of her wide brown eyes was turning darker. It was cancer in the baby's retina. For months, both parents drove the little girl to New York City, where she underwent hours-long chemotherapy treatments targeted directly at the tumor.

"She was born healthy and full of energy ... such a happy baby girl, yet you wouldn't think it because she makes little monster noises," wrote Shaylyn Leonard, Ryan's sister, on the fundraiser page she set up to help with medical expenses.

At the time, Maddox had undergone four of eight treatments at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. There, she sat for intense chemotherapy that targeted the tumor in her eye and the blood vessels feeding it. The treatments lasted as long as six hours, Leonard wrote.

Leonard asked family and friends to help with the expenses.

"With your donation you can ease some high stress and give Maddox a better shot at kicking this tumor!" Maddox's aunt wrote.

While Maddox was sick, Morgan Lawrence worked as a barista at the Freedom of Espresso store in Armory Square. Jeff Meyer, who works nearby, got his coffee from "Mo" nearly every day for a year. The two became friends.

Morgan talked about Maddox and her illness. "She was doing everything in her power to make sure that little baby would survive," Meyer said.

He said Morgan Lawrence was stressed out about the baby's illness, along with unspecific personal problems.

Meyer said he met Ryan Lawrence a few times in the coffee shop. Lawrence would come in with Maddox, who was usually in a baby carrier. He and the baby would usually sit by themselves while Morgan served customers.

Meyer, who runs the Salt City Horror Fest, set up Morgan to shoot pictures of the festival last year. Meyer said after that, Morgan Lawrence no longer appeared interested in photography and stopped working at the coffee shop.

"It seemed sudden and strange," Meyer said.

On Feb. 20, Morgan Lawrence was working at Francesca's, a boutique at Destiny USA. Ryan Lawrence and Maddox dropped her off for her shift around 4 p.m. She expected them to pick her back up around 10 p.m.

Instead, Ryan Lawrence drove Maddox down Interstate 81 to Tinker Falls, a secluded waterfall that is popular in warmer months. It's likely the young family who liked to hike and lived nearby on Syracuse's south edge had been there before.

Somewhere in the park that surrounds the falls, Ryan Lawrence killed the toddler whose life he fought to save just a year earlier, said Fitzpatrick, the district attorney.

Then he drove, with her body in the car, to the Inner Harbor near where her mother was working. There, Ryan Lawrence dumped his daughter's body in the water, authorities believe.

The police put out an Amber Alert for Ryan and Maddox Lawrence the next morning, Feb. 21. Later that day, Morgan Lawrence made a plea through the media.

She looked out at a sea of television cameras and squinted into the light, holding the sides of the podium as if it was holding her up. The 23-year-old's parents stood a few feet away, flanked by police officers.

"If you're listening, please just bring Maddox home. Maddox I love you, honey," Lawrence said through tears. "Ryan, please, just please call. We just want to know that the both of you are safe."

With that, Maddox was everyone's baby. As police searched from Syracuse to Baldwinsville, people around Central New York took to Facebook and news sites, offering to help search and praying for Maddox's safe return.

As the temperatures dipped into the low 20s on Feb. 22, Ryan Lawrence wandered into the Thrifty Shopper on Downer Street, where he had shopped before. He wore a wig, hat, bandana and sunglasses, said Pamalia Towndrow, who was working there.

A former employee, who happened to be in the store, recognized Lawrence despite his disguise. She followed him out of the store and called 911. Police later picked him up. By that time, Maddox had been dead for nearly two days.

When Lawrence was picked up by police, he had camping gear in his backpack and a book on how to avoid capture, sources told Syracuse.com. He smelled like campfire smoke, Towndrow said.

Syracuse detectives questioned Lawrence for hours, in the end convincing him to help with the search.

As the public watched in virtual real time on their computers and phones, the man who seemed like a devoted father helped point police to where he dumped her body.

Maddox Mary Lawrence was pulled from the water shortly after noon Feb. 23, nearly three days after she was killed.

Since then, questions and grief have grown together for people who knew the young Lawrence family and the thousands of people who never met them, but prayed that Maddox would be found alive.

Ryan Lawrence's family said Friday they were heartbroken over the loss of Maddox, who was a ray of sunshine in their lives.

In the statement provided to Syracuse.com by Ryan's sister, Charissa Lawrence, they had a message for Ryan's wife: "We want Morgan to know that we simply can't articulate how much pain we feel for you, and our love for you is unwavering."

Ryan Lawrence's family is grappling to reconcile the loving, young father they knew with the man police say killed his daughter.

"What we saw of Ryan is that he loved Maddox immensely and so we are struggling to make sense out of this tragedy," they wrote. "But we are not successful and know that we will never be."



Statement from the family of Ryan Lawrence to The Post-Standard/Syracuse.com:



"The Lawrence family would like to express their extreme heartbreak and despair over the loss of this beautiful baby who was our granddaughter, niece, and precious ray of sunshine in all of our lives.



What we saw of Ryan is that he loved Maddox immensely and so we are struggling to make sense out of this tragedy but we are not successful and know that we will never be.



We want Morgan to know that we simply can't begin to articulate how much pain we feel for you, and our love for you is unwavering."

Marnie Eisenstadt writes about life and culture in Central New York. Contact her anytime: email | twitter | 315-470-2246.