Mother of missing teenager charged with child neglect
The mother of a missing Oklahoma City teenager was charged Monday with child neglect.
Reshawnda Laney Durham has been held in the Oklahoma County jail since Feb. 3.
Her daughter, Geanna Durham, disappeared from Oklahoma in May 2014. Police suspect the girl is dead.
Prosecutors with Attorney General Scott Pruitt filed three felony child neglect counts against the mother in Oklahoma County District Court.
The mother could face a more severe charge if skeletal remains found Feb. 9 in a Spencer landfill are identified as her daughter. Police and prosecutors are waiting on a report from the medical examiner’s office about the remains.
Geanna would have been 13 or 14 at the time she was last seen in Oklahoma.
Police discovered Geanna was missing on Feb. 2 when a Department of Human Services worker went to pick her up at her mother’s home in Oklahoma City. The worker asked police for assistance.
The mother told police that Geanna had been with her father in Florida since May 2014, according to a police report. An officer wrote, “I felt she was not being honest with me.”
The father denied picking up the girl, saying he had not seen her since she was 18 months old, according to the police report.
The state’s child welfare agency became involved because of a report Reshawnda Durham’s 3-year-old son had been found naked and unsupervised in the front yard on Jan. 31. The mother was at the hospital that day, having given birth to twins a few days before, records show.
Police reported one of the twins, a boy, had marijuana in his system.
Reshawnda Durham is accused in the first count of neglecting her 3-yearold son by leaving him alone. She is accused in the second count of neglecting her newborn son by exposing him to marijuana. She is accused in the third count of neglecting Geanna by failing to provide adequate care for the girl since May 2014.
Reshawnda Durham has been arrested before and is on probation for identity theft. Records conflict on her birthdate. She is either 28 or 30.
Police suspect Geanna’s body had been kept inside a unit of a Del City storage business where Reshawnda Durham once worked.
Police suspect the body ended up at the landfill after being moved recently to a dumpster.
Homicide detectives revealed their suspicions in search warrant records filed Friday.