Last picture of girl, 9, sheltering in the bathroom with her family 15 minutes before tornado struck

This is the last picture of a nine-year-old girl who was seen sheltering with her family 15 minutes before a tornado tore through their home and hurled them into a nearby field.

Annistyn Rackley, holding her favorite doll, smiles alongside her sisters Avalinn, seven, and Alanna, three, in the bathroom of the home the family had only moved into ten days ago.

Parents Meghan and Trey decided the windowless room offered the best protection as the storm barrelled towards Carruthers, Missouri, on Friday night.

The mom had sent the photo of the girls to her great-aunt Sandra Hooker to prove they were safe.

But 15 minutes later, a tornado tore the house apart, throwing the family through the air into an adjacent field where emergency responders found them lying in the mud.

Annistyn, a third-grader who loved swimming, dancing and cheerleading, was killed, one of 88 people who died as up to 30 tornadoes ripped across the Midwest, also striking Kentucky, Illinois, Tennessee and Arkansas. 

Hooker, known as Aunt Sandy to the family, called Annistyn a ‘special angel,’ recalling her as outgoing and energetic despite a rare liver condition that required regular doctor’s visits. 

Parents Meghan and Trey Rackley with their daughters (from left) Annistyn, Avalinn and Alanna

The Rackley girls (from left) Avalinn, Alanna and Annistyn posing for a family Christmas photo

Annistyn poses in a recent family photo for Christmas

Her father, Trey Rackley, a 37-year-old trucking company dispatcher, suffered cuts and bruises and remains sore and sometimes in shock, Hooker said.

But he and the youngest daughter, three-year-old Alanna – Little Lani – are no longer hospitalized.

Hooker said mother Meghan’s injuries included broken bones, a brain injury and a large cut, and she’s asking people to pray for the 32-year-old mother.

The middle child, Avalinn, or Ava, had broken vertebrae in her back and was expected to undergo surgery Wednesday, Hooker said.

Hooker said Annistyn still was full of energy and delighted in donning outfits and makeup for cheer competitions and learning new dances from TikTok. 

After Ava reached a hospital in Memphis, Hooker said, she learned from family there that the young girl had told doctors and nurses, ‘I was flying around in the tornado and I prayed to Jesus to take care of me, and he spit me out – and the tornado spit me out into the mud.’

Hooker said after a prayer vigil Sunday, searchers in the field near the Rackleys’ house found the doll that Annistyn was holding in the photo.

Hooker said it was Annistyn’s favorite, and she called it Baby MawMaw.

‘They brought Baby MawMaw to me, and I’m cleaning her up so that Ava can have Baby MawMaw,’ she said.

Hooker is the sister of Meghan Rackley’s grandmother, and she said she and Annistyn, or Anni, grew close over the past four years.

Annistyn also attended the same elementary school where her mom and Hooker teach.

Hooker teaches gifted students at the same elementary school where Meghan Rackley, 37, teaches kindergarten.

Hooker said the Rackleys hadn’t yet unpacked from their move December 4 from Caruthersville to their new home along Highway J, just west of the city.

Hooker talked to mom Meghan on Friday afternoon about the possibility of bad storms.

Annistyn also attended the same elementary school where her mom and Hooker teach.

Hooker said Annistyn’s parents learned when she was two months old that she had a rare liver disorder in which bile ducts don’t develop properly, sometimes making it hard to fight off illness. 

The Rackleys on a family holiday

She said she bonded with Annistyn during doctor’s visits and blood draws and said the girl liked to draw with chalk on the cement of her carport.

But she said Annistyn still was full of energy and delighted in donning outfits and makeup for cheer competitions and learning new dances from TikTok.

She did cartwheels and splits in front of Hooker.

‘I would just gasp because she could do the splits all the time, and she would just laugh,’ Hooker said. ‘She loved dancing.’ 

Hooker’s account of what happened to the Rackleys came from talking to law enforcement and first responders who were at the scene after the tornado and found family members in the field. Hooker also said she talked to the girl’s father.

‘Their house is splintered,’ she told The Associated Press during a telephone interview.

‘There’s debris strewn forever out in the field, and so they were sucked up into the tornado.’

A vigil held for the family in the devastated community of Carruthers, Missouri

A vigil held for the Rackley family

Tornadoes also roared through both the Missouri and Illinois sides of the St. Louis area, as well as the Memphis, Tennessee, area and parts of Arkansas and Illinois.

A candle factory in Mayfield, Kentucky, and an Amazon facility in Edwardsville, Illinois, were hit.

West of St. Louis, 84-year-old Ollie Borgmann, described as a sweet and ‘typical grandmother,’ died at a hospital after a tornado on Friday blew the Defiance, Missouri, home she shared with her 84-year-old husband, Vernon, off its foundation.

In Pemiscot County in southeastern Missouri, bordering Arkansas and Kentucky, where the Rackleys live, the sheriff’s office did not immediately return telephone messages Monday seeking comment about the storm that destroyed the Rackleys’ home.

Gov. Mike Parson’s office said that about 30,000 Missouri residents initially were without power.