Suspect in Maleah case faces new charge
Prosecutors say former fiancé of girl’s mother intentionally caused child serious bodily harm
The former fiance of Maleah Davis’ mother was charged Monday with causing injuries to the 4year-old Houston girl whose disappearance and gruesome death garnered nationwide attention.
The charge of injury to a child causing serious bodily harm comes more than three months after Maleah was reported missing and after prosecutors received the results of her autopsy from the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences. The medical examiner’s office declined to release the results of the autopsy because the investigation into her death is ongoing.
According to court documents, Derion Vence could have harmed Maleah in a variety of ways. Prosecutors said in a document of probable cause Vence could have hit the child “with his hand” or a blunt object while the 27-year-old was tasked with caring for the girl. Maleah’s mother was away in Massachusetts.
Maleah could have also fallen to the floor at their Alief-area apartment and hit another unspecified blunt object.
Prosecutors have also alleged in the charging document that Vence failed to “provide proper medical care” to her.
“After a review of all of the evidence, including the autopsy results, prosecutors determined there was sufficient evidence to charge Vence with intentionally and knowingly causing seriously bodily injury to a child younger than 15 years of age,” the district attorney’s office said in a statement.
Vence’s defense attorney, Dorian Cotlar, issued a statement Monday afternoon that the new charge was based where the evidence has led District Attorney Kim Ogg and her prosecutors.
“She has not made a decision based on public rage or television media sensationalism,” Cotlar said in email. “She and her assistants are doing their job, and we will continue to do ours.”
The latest felony charge can carry the same punishment as murder, landing Vence anywhere from five to 99 years in prison should he be convicted.
The charge is in addition to the tampering with a human corpse
offense that led to Vence’s May 11 arrest that followed her disappearance. He reported her missing from a Sugar Land hospital May 4 by claiming that she was abducted by three men who attacked them on the side of the road near George Bush Intercontinental Airport.
Maleah's disappearance sparked a citywide search that intensified as authorities began to unravel Vence’s version of what happened.
Court documents show investigators found blood
thought to be of Maleah's in the apartment where Vence was caught on surveillance footage May 3 carrying a laundry basket. The same apartment is where investigators found evidence that someone tried to clean up the blood.
Vence was arrested with the tampering charge and a grand jury upheld the offense with an indictment last month.
While in custody at the Harris County Jail, Vence allegedly told fellow inmate David Chalfant, and days later, activist Quanell X, that Maleah's body could be found in a trash bag on the side of the road near Hope, Ark. Authorities found her remains along a highway hours after the bag was hit by a lawn mower.
In a jailhouse interview, Chalfant, who has since been transferred to a state corrections facility in Huntsville, said Vence also revealed to him how Maleah was hurt. Vence and the girl were playing when she fell and hit her head on a table, the inmate said.
Vence remains is custody and is slated to return to court Wednesday to face the new charge, court records show.