Gracie Solomon Says Her Father Raped Her and Murdered Her Brother
Why aren’t we hearing her story?
This story was originally published on Medium in June 2021.
On the morning of Monday, July 20, 2020, Grace Christian Academy student Grant Solomon was reportedly struck by his own truck in a fatal parking lot accident just 15 minutes before baseball practice. Grant had been 18 for only one month.
According to his father, Aaron Solomon —and the only witness to his son’s fatal accident — Grant parked his truck at the Ward Performance Institute in Gallatin, Tennessee, and went to get his baseball gear from the bed of his truck when it rolled backward, dragged him across the pavement, down a hill, and into a ditch.
Aaron says he was parked next to Grant, and that he was inside his own vehicle checking work emails when he realized what had happened.
Aaron Solomon called 911 at 8:44 AM from the parking lot, and Grant was taken to the hospital by an ambulance where he was pronounced dead before 9:30 AM.
“My son’s truck backed over him, it’s rolled over him and drug him into the ditch and it’s on top of him. He’s not alert, he’s out and he’s trapped. I got three guys here and he’s trapped under the truck.”
— Aaron Solomon, on 7/20/20 911 call
Those “three guys” with him were never identified and when the police arrived, they were unable to locate any other witnesses besides Aaron.
According to the medical examiner, the cause of death was cardiac arrest. Grant had blunt force trauma to the back of his head and traumatic brain injury.
Per the police report, Grant was lying on his back beneath the front of his truck but between the tires, so the weight of the wheels was not on his body. It also said Grant was bleeding from his nose and ears, in addition to his scalp.
For Grant’s sister Gracie and their mother, Angelia, Aaron’s account of the incident didn’t make much sense. They said that Grant never kept his baseball gear in the bed of his truck, but always in the back seat on the driver’s side. Why would he be behind his truck? How did the truck pull him under and drag him without his father hearing any cries for help?
Friends and family say Grant always communicated with his girlfriend from his truck upon arrival at a new location (via phone, text, or Snapchat) and before exiting the vehicle. Nobody could explain why he didn’t do that the morning he died. Where was his phone, anyway?
Eight days later, when Aaron described the incident on video to his ex-wife Angelia, he indicated that Grant was indeed getting his gear from the backseat and not the bed.
Angelia, a Doctor of Pharmacy, couldn't understand why Grant’s injuries seemed so inconsistent with Aaron’s story. She says she was shocked to see her son's body intact with so little injury.
Hospital staff recorded a single laceration with bleeding on Grant’s skull and three bruises — one on his jaw, one near his left hip, and one on his right thigh.
Grant drove that truck for about an hour just to get to baseball practice, and Aaron said the truck dragged his son across the asphalt into that ditch filled with rocks. Yet no further injuries were recorded. No burns from the hot vehicle or abrasions from getting dragged along an asphalt lot. No punctures, fractures, bleeding, or any other wounds beyond those three bruises and the one laceration to his head.
Although Grant’s mother requested an investigation, police took Aaron’s statement and promptly closed the case. At the time of his son’s death, and before Angelia arrived at the hospital, Aaron filled out paperwork to decline an autopsy, post-mortem examination, or organ donation. Grant was living with his mother, but Aaron didn't consult his ex-wife on any of these decisions.
Police also released the vehicle back to Aaron Solomon without an inspection for any issues. Some of you might recall the death of actor Anton Yelchin in 2016 when his Jeep Grand Cherokee rolled backward and pinned him against a brick pillar in his driveway. Just a few months earlier, Fiat Chrysler had recalled 1.1 million vehicles including Yelchin's “after an investigation found that electronic shifts could spring back to their previous position after being moved to a different gear.” Having read about that freak accident, I was surprised to learn that Aaron would drive the same truck that killed his son without concern for his own safety.
Later that week at his son’s memorial, Aaron gave a speech where he described how the family used to call Grant Mr. Peepers because he was so wide-eyed and curious. Seven and a half minutes into that speech, Aaron strangely said:
“Fast forward to Monday morning. Around 8:45, something happens right beside me that is such a blink of the eye, bizarre, flukey, tragic, unexplainable accident that takes Grant’s spirit from this earth… and the only way I can rationalize it in my mind is it’s a godly thing.”
After listening to Aaron’s speech about his son, many people have expressed deep discomfort and likened his composure to an emotionless performance of a man more interested in himself than his recently deceased son. Even knowing that we all grieve in different ways (and I've been known to seem overly aloof), I admit the video rubbed me the wrong way as well. It was hard to watch or even get through the Mr. Peepers bit.
My stomach turned when Aaron called his son's death a good thing... as if it served God.
Today, Grant Solomon’s sister Gracie is just 14 years old. On May 12 of this year, an anonymous account called Freedom For Gracie uploaded an 18-minute video to YouTube, where the teenager made many serious allegations against her father, including rape in a North Carolina hotel room and a literal lifetime of sexual abuse.
Let me warn you—it’s a really difficult video to watch. In it, Gracie describes many instances of sexual abuse. She talks about the various ways their father belittled, intimidated, and controlled her brother, and how her whole family has suffered at the hands of Aaron Solomon... not to mention Grace Christian Academy and Grace Chapel.
Gracie accused the founding church pastor of lying publicly about a conversation he had with Grant. She says Grant wanted Pastor Steve Berger’s help to stop the abuse, but Pastor Berger claimed Grant just wanted to talk about Jesus.
In her video, Gracie states her father respected her boundaries for a couple of years — after the rape and after she and Grant ran away from Aaron’s home to live with their mother—but says he began harassing her again as soon as Grant died. She doesn’t even want to go to school anymore because she says Aaron shows up whenever he feels like it, disregards and fights her temporary restraining order, and that the school allows him on their property without asking him to leave.
She said Grant had a plan to fight their father in court when he turned 18 because then he suspected his word would be taken more seriously. Gracie believes her father killed her brother to prevent that from happening, and now she’s afraid he’ll try to kill her too.
Along with Grace’s video, Freedom For Gracie also posted the testimony of a GCA classmate named Anna Smith who says she often heard Grant talk about his father’s abuse. According to Anna, when she went to school authorities to get help for the kids, she was told there was nothing they could do.
Anna claims that Gracie also told her that the school dismissed her fears about Aaron and her allegations of abuse, by telling her to let it go. As in, oh that was years ago.
For many survivors of abuse within tight-knit religious communities, it’s all eerily familiar. Folks who listen to Gracie and believe her story can’t fathom how so many adults failed her and Grant for years. But for those of us who are well acquainted with abuse in a church, we know such stories aren't uncommon.
The people behind the YouTube videos have also created an Instagram account where they’ve posted a multitude of documents supporting Gracie’s story. Again, these are all painful reads, and it’s heartbreaking that a 14-year-old child and her believers have had to take to social media just to try and get some bit of justice.
I'll admit that when I first found out about Gracie’s story, I was personally overwhelmed and unsure that I could even write about it. All of the news coverage about Grant’s death just glossed right over any details, often calling it a car crash, and they mostly focused on the fact that he was Aaron Solomon’s son and the nephew of a PCA girl’s basketball coach.
You see, Aaron Solomon is a former News 4 Nashville morning show co-host and sports anchor, and he’s a current financial advisor with Merrill Lynch. Glancing at his social media profiles, he looks like a doting father. Certainly not a father whose children have been documented to be terrified of him for years. I try to imagine how I would react if my daughter told the world she wanted nothing to do with me—I don't think I'd feel good about posting her photos online anyway as if only my feelings mattered.
Aaron’s even posted fundraisers on Facebook for “Our Kids,” a ministry whose mission is to help children who’ve been sexually abused. It's... ironic.
However, there are many disturbing documents and testimonies on the Freedom For Gracie Instagram account, including numerous statements from mental health professionals claiming that Grant, Gracie, and their mother Angelia have all suffered significant trauma due to an abusive relationship with Aaron Solomon.
Back in May 2013, Aaron claimed his wife was depressed and suicidal, and that she tried to hang herself in the bathroom shower with a hairdryer cord. Aaron claimed he didn’t call 911 because he didn’t want to upset the children, but he left the house to go talk to her parents because he said Angelia began hitting and punching him when she regained consciousness.
The next day, Aaron did call 911 and had his wife get a mental health examination. None of the examiners thought that she was suicidal. In the notes, Aaron was called “volatile and possibly violent,” while they referred to Angelia as “calm” and “telling the truth.”
Grant and Angelia maintained that it was Aaron who tried to kill her with a hairdryer cord. Aaron later complained that he wished her treatment at the psychiatric hospital had been “more helpful.” Upon her release, she obtained a restraining order against her husband. The very next day, Aaron obtained one against her, and then a Judge Philip Smith prohibited Angelia from taking possession of their children.
Why?
In June 2013, Aaron requested a continuance of the order and in July, Judge Smith ruled in his favor, claiming he didn’t believe Angelia hadn’t tried to commit suicide. His ruling meant that Angelia was allowed no time with Grant and Gracie until she received another psychological evaluation.
According to the October psychiatric report, “There is no data to indicate that Dr. Solomon is at risk of harming her children. The collateral sources, her self-report, and the report of her husband contain no information that suggests she might be abusive, neglectful, or harmful to the children.”
So, what did the court do?
Granted Angelia just two hours of supervised visits each week.
Aaron and Angela were officially divorced in 2014, and despite the fact that medical professionals didn’t corroborate Aaron’s story that Angelia was suicidal, and in fact determined that she had PTSD from an abusive marriage, Judge Smith gave Aaron custody of both children in June 2014.
For years, Angelia alleged that Aaron was sexually abusing Gracie and mistreating Grant. At one point, the children said their father told them Angelia was dead so they’d quit asking to see her. In 2018, the siblings ran away together from their father’s house to live with their mother since the courts kept ignoring their requests to be with her.
That September, two classmates attended family court with Grant and were hoping to testify. According to the kids, the presiding judge told Grant that they wouldn’t have to go back to Aaron’s.
At the time of the ruling, however, the classmates were not allowed to speak and the judge told Grant that he was a big boy who could defend himself against his father, and Aaron was awarded custody once again.
Grant and Gracie’s counselor wrote that the kids were making progress working through their traumas but still very fearful of Aaron in November 2018. Despite such notes, Judge Deanna Johnson ruled in January 2019 that Angelia’s claims of abuse were without merit. She barred her from taking further civil actions against Aaron for 6 years (when Gracie would be 18).
The Freedom For Gracie Instagram account has videos and audio of Gracie in tears, refusing to go with Aaron. In the clips, Aaron frequently acts as if his hands are tied and he can’t let any of them “break the rules.” In a Publix parking lot, Aaron suggests to Gracie that her disobedience (by refusing to go with him) could get him or Angelia put in jail. At the time of Grant’s death, he lived with their mother instead.
There are also recent court documents, including a June 4 affidavit written by Gracie. About a week after her video testimony was uploaded to YouTube, Aaron filed a lawsuit against his ex-wife Angelia and more than 20 other people for a “smear campaign against Mr. Solomon through social media.”
The affidavit is more explicit in describing the night Gracie’s father allegedly raped her in a hotel room.
She was just 11 at the time.
Gracie attends Grace Christian Academy, which is effectively run by Grace Chapel in Franklin, Tennessee. You might have heard a bit about Grace Chapel over the years. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee is a member, along with Senator Jack Johnson, and of course, Aaron Solomon.
The Senator’s wife is none other than Judge Deanna Johnson, the one who ruled that Angelia cannot bring a civil action against Aaron until Gracie turns 18.
The founding pastor of Grace Chapel, Steve Berger once gave a sermon called “Biblical Qualifications for Bringing an Accusation Against Someone.” In it, he said there must be multiple witnesses (including other people, fingerprints, or DNA evidence) for an accusation to be valid. From the pulpit, he concluded that Dr. Ford’s testimony against Brett Kavanaugh was therefore not a biblical accusation.
Grace Chapel has since deleted that sermon.
Berger went on to say that even if Kavanaugh did rape someone, he’s still qualified for the Supreme Court, because “Moses was a murderer before he was the world’s greatest lawgiver,” and “King David was an adulterer and murderer as a King,” and “Saul of Tarsus was a murderer before he became Paul the Apostle, the greatest Apostle in the history of the church.” (Notably, Moses and David and Paul all actually sought forgiveness, something Kavanaugh has not done.)
— “A Look at Bill Lee’s Uber-Conservative Home Church” by Cari Wade Gervin
Earlier this year, Berger stepped down from his role as senior pastor and denied that it had anything to do with the widespread criticism he received for attending the January 6 Capitol riot.
From his hotel room in DC, Berger wrongly announced on Facebook Live that members of “Antifa” had stormed the Capitol, pretending to be Trump supporters. His video was viewed about 60K times within just 24 hours.
Among his false claims about rioters, Berger said:
“For a fact, they’ve already identified some Antifa members from other events who were still wearing the same kind of crazy clothes and costumes and have the same tattoos. They were inside the Capitol building waiving Trump flags, but they have a history of being Antifa members. So I’m not here to say that the trouble makers were all and only Antifa members, but I can tell you this: they were there, they were present and they were identified.”
Berger later recanted his statements and deleted the video.
While reading about Gracie, Grant, and Angelia, I can't help but notice how much corruption intersects with their stories. Aaron Solomon’s attorney, Scott Parsley, the man Gracie says tried to intimidate her in court, was suspended for tricking clients into transferring their property to him.
One of Aaron’s best friends, Sam Johnson, made headlines earlier this spring when he was caught on video publicly ridiculing a gay boy in a prom dress. As a result of the viral video, Johnson was fired from his CEO position at telehealth company Visuwell.
Since then, Sam's been known to chastise others on social media for speaking out against Aaron on Gracie’s behalf. From his dog’s social media accounts.
Also, you can see Sam in a video clip on the Freedom For Gracie Instagram account when Aaron met with Angelia, eight days after Grant’s death to show her what happened. Angelia took the video and we can hear Sam asking Aaron, “Are you okay with this being recorded?” Aaron says yes, but immediately appears to lose his train of thought, and when Angelia asks if he made it down there to the truck himself, he says no.
“Nobody touched him or the truck,” Aaron replies.
Not the “three guys” he mentioned in his 911 call? And Aaron didn’t go down there himself to see his son, to talk to him, to try to help or comfort him as he waited for help to arrive? If he didn't even go down there, why did he assume Grant was trapped on that 911 call? Per the police report, there was no weight bearing down on Grant.
In the same clip, Aaron claims the police officers wouldn’t let him go down there to see his son, saying he thinks they were just trying to protect him from seeing anything until Grant was removed from the ditch.
They weren't interested in him as a possible suspect?
About two weeks after Gracie’s video testimony was made public, she was taken from her mother’s home and placed with DCS. While the folks behind Freedom For Gracie say she’s grateful to have been placed with a family that knows and understands her situation, all Gracie wants is to go home to her mother and receive protection from her father, whom she calls Aaron and a monster. Gracie has been clear—she wants nothing more to do with Aaron Solomon and she fears for her life as long as the adults sworn to protect her allow him contact or custody.
To date, Aaron Solomon has not been charged with any wrongdoing and he denies all accusations against him. Supporters of Aaron’s periodically pop up on social media to claim that Gracie and her supporters are lying, or that they’re handling all of this in a supposedly un-Christian manner.
Meanwhile, leadership at Grace Chapel claims that Christians don’t sue each other. (Reminder: Aaron, a member of their church is currently suing more than 20 people including a GCA classmate Anna Smith for giving video testimony about her talks with Grant, Gracie, and school counselors.) Other students and former church members are now coming out to say there are so many problems within Grace Chapel and Grace Christian Academy.
Those of us who are following Freedom For Gracie still have lots of questions. Why would Aaron arrange burial plots for himself, Gracie, and ex-wife Angelia just last year, after years of bitter fighting? Where is Grant’s truck and why didn’t Aaron give it to Angelia and Gracie as he indicated he would?
Why have the courts, Aaron, and his attorney insisted that Angelia is an unfit parent when multiple professionals say otherwise? And why would a member of the church even be allowed to preside over a church family’s custody battle?
This fight has been going on for at least 8 years, with the alleged abuse happening for even longer. Although some folks might wonder how Angelia could have stayed in the marriage for so long if Aaron’s behavior was really that bizarre and abusive, they seem to be missing the reality that spiritual abuse frequently shushes and scolds victims who try to speak out. Furthermore, such communities tend to protect their own and gaslight victims. Perhaps that's why Angelia says it was church members who tried to convince her that Grant's body was covered with injuries the hospital never recorded. Injuries she never saw when she got to the hospital and saw her son's body.
Some people can watch the videos of Gracie’s palpable discomfort around Aaron and chalk it up to tween-age rebellion, or blame Angelia by calling this a case of parental alienation. Yet, thanks to Tennessee courts, Angelia had little to no access to Grant or Gracie between 2013 and 2018. Even when a judge increased her visitation rights from 2 to 6 hours a week, how could she have brainwashed the kids against their father when they were under Aaron’s care every day? At one point, Aaron prevented the kids from seeing their mother for one-and-a-half years. Their counselor would later write that the kids truly felt they’d been kidnapped by their father when they were just 10 and 6 years old.
What kind of judge, and what kind of father doesn’t care about the damage such actions do to a family?
Those of you who are familiar with my work will understand why this particular case is so close to my heart and why I’m so angry that Gracie’s story has been dismissed for so long. As a survivor of evangelical abuse and a mother who lives less than three hours away from Grace Chapel, I have a pretty good feel for the garbage Gracie and her mother are up against.
The evangelical community down here in Tennessee is a different animal, unlike anything I’ve witnessed in Christian churches up north. When I read that Angelia said her own father declared Aaron could do whatever he wants — even hit Angelia — I was unsurprised. As I've said many times, scandals, secrets, and abuse crop up whenever we give such men unbridled power.
And why do they get so much power? Because they claim to love Jesus?
These are serious allegations that should be covered all over the media right now. Instead, it appears people with influence are afraid to touch it. A church should not be a refuge for abusers nor complicit in their crimes. Seeing how Grace Christian Academy and Grace Chapel limits social media comments and routinely scrubs their timelines of incriminating sermons, statements, or videos is downright predictable—especially when its membership boasts governors, senators, and wealthy CEOs.
It doesn’t have to be this way, though.
The folks at Freedom For Gracie are asking people to share (and keep sharing) Gracie’s story on social media. You can use the hashtags #FreedomForGracie and #JusticeForGrant. People can also contact the TBI and ask them to investigate the circumstances surrounding Grant Solomon’s death. They can contact the DCS to ask how they have even helped Gracie and how they helped Grant. Parents, teachers, students, and any current or former members of Grace Chapel or GCA are encouraged to speak out about any similar or related encounters they have had in the community. There is also information about supporting Gracie and Angelia with their legal fees.
People have begun to step forward to say they were worried about Grace or Grant with their father, but they either second-guessed themselves or assumed that somebody else who knew more would be able to do something. Some of those folks now wonder if they could have helped save Grant. While we may never know the answer to that question, we can do something about Gracie’s story today. We can listen, we can believe her, and we can speak up for survivors about abuse cover-ups in these evangelical and elite communities with a habit of harboring abusive men.
For further reading:
Williamson County family exchanges litigation over accusations of child abuse, murder
Former WSMV Channel 4 News anchor, Merrill Lynch financial advisor and Franklin resident Aaron Solomon is currently at…www.williamsonhomepage.com
The Extremely Dark Allegations Swirling Around a Former Local TV Personality
As far as YouTube videos made by teenagers go, Gracie Solomon's seems a little subdued at first glance. There's no…www.nashvillescene.com
A Look at Bill Lee's Uber-Conservative Home Church
Franklin millionaire businessman Bill Lee won a surprise upset during the GOP gubernatorial primary basically because…www.memphisflyer.com