HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?
As police await confirmation that a child’s body found along a highway in Arkansas is that of Maleah Davis, the city of Houston asks:
An Amber Alert announced the news: an adorable girl with a gap-toothed smile, standing 3 feet tall and weighing 30 pounds, was gone.
The story of missing 4-year-old Maleah Davis spread rapidly. Strangers rallied to her cause and relatives became central to a mystery that drew national attention.
Everyone had questions: Did her mother’s boyfriend kill her? Could she have been abducted?
People saw in this missing girl their own daughter, granddaughter or niece. Someone wrote on a balloon, “4ever Houstons Baby Girl.”
Finally, on Friday, answers started to emerge. The monthlong search for the Houston girl took police to southwestern Arkansas, where investigators found the remains of a child in a black garbage bag along the side of Interstate 30. Police believe they have found Maleah, though they are awaiting DNA confirmation.
Questions persist, however, about the tumultuous last months of little Maleah’s life leading up to her disappearance on May 3.
How Child Protective Services, lawyers and judges handled her case continues to be scrutinized, with advocates saying more information needs to be shared. Jamey Caruthers, senior staff attorney with Children at Risk, said something in the child’s custody case may have been missed.
“It is a failing of the system,” Caruthers said. “Whether that was unforeseeable failing or not, I just don’t know.”
Maleah’s brothers, ages 2 and 6, who have been unaware she was missing, remain with relatives. A judge has barred Maleah’s mother, Brittany Bowens, and her ex-boyfriend, Derion Vence, from seeing them. And while Vence remains behind bars on charges of tampering with a corpse, he reportedly told activist Quanell X early Friday that he killed the child accidentally.
It was Vence’s alleged confession — and his description of where he had dumped the body — that led police
“How come nobody’s asking about CPS involvement, and why was the child returned? Other than the adults around her, who let this child down?”
Lisa Mikosh, chief operating officer of Justice for Children