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HOUSTON (AP) – Trained dogs have detected the smell of human decomposition in the vehicle of a man arrested in connection with the disappearance of a 4-year-old Texan girl, according to a prosecutor.
Derion Vence, 26, was jailed on Sunday for a $ 1 million bail after being arrested a day earlier for falsifying evidence, including a human body. His next court appearance is scheduled for Monday.
Houston police said the investigators had not found Maleah Davis and the investigation was continuing. The authorities refused to say whether they believed that Vence had killed Maleah. Prosecutors testified in court documents filed on Saturday that Vence could face additional charges, including murder.
The investigation began after Vence told the police that men in a truck on May 4 had kidnapped him, Maleah and his 2-year-old son a day earlier, but had released him he and the boy. Vence told investigators that he had been left at Sugar Land, in the suburbs of Houston, and that he had gone to the hospital where he had reported the kidnapping. the girl.
The Sugar Land police, who initially interrogated her, said her story kept changing and she was not making any progress.
Vence, who was living with Maleah and his mother, reported that his silver Nissan Altima had been taken during the kidnapping, but the surveillance video showed that this vehicle was being used to remove Vence to the hospital. The police found the car on Thursday.
Dogs trained to find dead bodies reacted to the trunk of the car, said Pat Stayton, an attorney at the Harris County Attorney's Office, at the Vence probable cause court hearing on Saturday night. .
The surveillance video of a neighbor showed on May 3, Vence was carrying a large blue laundry basket with a large trash bag in his apartment, said Stayton. Vence returned three minutes later without the basket and was later seen leaving the apartment with cleaning equipment, including bleach.
In the silver Nissan, the police found a laundry basket that looked like the one Vence had pulled out of his apartment, Stayton said.
"Both dogs reacted to the trunk of the silver Nissan that the accused had driven and at which the blue laundry basket had been found, indicating that dogs were reacting to the scent of human decomposition in the vehicle," Stayton said. .
Investigators also found blood in the apartment, both in the hallway leading to the bathroom and on the surfaces inside the bathroom, Stayton said.
At the Saturday night hearing, Vence announced its intention to hire a defense lawyer.
Rodney Brown, a lawyer appointed to represent Vence only for Saturday's hearing, had asked an investigating judge to fix the bond at $ 5,000, claiming that Vence had a low risk of absconding and had passed most of his life in Houston.
Stayton argued that Vence was a flight risk and that there was "evidence of disappointment on the part of the accused regarding the information he gave to the police" .
The police described Vence as Maleah's father-in-law, but his mother, Brittany Bowens, told Vence through a spokesperson that his former fiancé was his. Quanell X, a local civil rights activist who spoke to reporters on behalf of Bowens on Friday, also said Vence had mistreated Maleah.
Child protection services removed Maleah and her brothers from home that Vence and Bowens shared in August after the girl was injured in the head, but the children were fired in February, according to a door -speaker of the agency.
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