Police in Arkansas arrested a woman and her boyfriend after discovering the body of her six-year-old boy buried under a hallway floor in their home in the Moro community, west of Marianna, Arkansas.
Police also found the dead boy’s sister, also around six years old, alive, but with burns and signs of abuse. She was taken to a hospital for treatment.
The discovery was made on Friday night by Lee County law enforcement.
Police arrested the mother, 28-year-old Ashley Roland, and the man, who is believed to be her boyfriend, 33-year-old Nathan Bridges. They took the two to the Lee County Jail and charged them with capital murder. In addition to the murder charges, police charged them with abusing a corpse, endangering a child’s life, and tampering with physical evidence.
A news release by the Arkansas Department of Public Safety, says that deputies from the Lee County Sheriff’s Office called special agents of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Arkansas State Police to the home at around 10:45 pm on Friday, December 16.
It is unknown why the police went to the home, but they discovered the six-year-old boy’s already decomposing body buried underneath the hallway floorboards.
A GoFundMe page created by a family friend says that the grandmother visited the home and discovered the girl with injuries related to probablephysical abuse, and the boy was missing.
Investigators believe the boy died three months ago, and the news release states that the police believe he died from injuries in the home. The county coroner and medical examiner will determine how the young boy died and the cause of his death.
The grandmother of the two children had been trying for a while to get custody of the children, and she had finally obtained a court order a week before the visit, allowing her to see the children during the weekends.
The GoFundMe page started by the friend, Anita Widely, suggested the discovery was made when the grandmother visited the kids on Friday. She said that the children’s mother concocted a story that the boy could not walk and the girl was at a friend’s house. The grandmother discovered the girl with cracked ribs and looking malnourished, according to the friend, and alerted authorities.
