Probation officers pause in-person visits and home searches for offenders facing an arrest warrant. That reduced supervision can last for months — in one case it was over a year. Six mothers died during this gap, WPLN and ProPublica found.

On Oct. 7, 2019, a 30-year-old beautician named Temptress Peebles called the Nashville probation office begging for help. Days earlier, her ex-boyfriend Brandon Horton had come up behind her, choked her and kicked her in the face, according to a court document.

Records show that was just the most recent attack. She had been living in a constant state of fear, her family said, since Horton had broken down her door and pointed a gun at her three months earlier, court records show. He had open warrants for his arrest, so she and her 8-year-old daughter, Khloe, were avoiding the apartment, always taking different roads to get to work or to stay at her family’s house.

Peebles asked the probation manager if Horton could be arrested when he came in for a court date the next day. Horton’s probation file shows the manager said she would try to help.

But Horton never showed up to court, according to his probation file, and Nashville police didn’t arrest him until it was too late.

Ten days after that call, probation and police records show, Horton waited for Peebles outside her apartment. Khloe told WPLN she remembers seeing Horton pointing a gun at her mom. She remembers throwing her arms around his legs and pleading with him, “no, no, no.” She remembers trying to call 911 while her mom, shot in both legs, lay in the street bleeding to death.