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Maleah Davis, age 4, is still missing, but the car her father-in-law says she was kidnapped was found by police.
UNITED STATES TODAY & # 39; HUI

Erect dogs have detected the smell of human decomposition in the car of a man arrested in connection with the mysterious disappearance of 4-year-old Maleah Davis near Houston, a prosecutor said.

Derion Vence was in jail on Sunday for a million-dollar bail after his arrest on Saturday and his charges of falsifying evidence – a human corpse. Vence must appear in court on Monday.

Vence, 26, lived with Maleah 's mother, Brittany Bowens, and would be the last person to see the girl before she disappeared more than a week ago.

Houston police said that Maleah had not been found and that the investigation was continuing. The authorities refused to say whether they believed Vence had been killed by the girl, but prosecutors said in court documents filed on Saturday that Vence could face new charges, including murder.

Police said the blood found in Vence's apartment was related to Maleah.

More: Intensive research is underway for the 4-year-old girl whose father-in-law says she was abducted on a Texas highway

Vence first told the police that he had been assaulted by three men in a truck after being stopped for a puncture on the way en route to recovering Bowens at the airport in the night of May 4th.

Vence said that Maleah and his 2 year old son were with him and that they were all kidnapped by the three men, who knocked him out. When he arrived the next day in Sugar Land, about 20 kilometers southwest of Houston, the girl was missing, Vence told the police. He also stated that the Nissan Altima that he was driving had been stolen.

Maleah Davis, shown in this undated photo published by the Houston Police Department, has been missing for more than a week. (Photo: AP)

Police said the surveillance video showed Vence being dropped off at Sugar Land Methodist Hospital, in the Altima of Money, last Sunday. Police found the car in a car park on Thursday.

At the likely cause hearing in Vence on Saturday night, Harris County Attorney Pat Stayton said two dogs trained to find dead bodies had reacted to the trunk of the car.

"Dogs were reacting to the smell of human decomposition in the vehicle," Stayton said.

The surveillance video of a neighbor had shown to Vence on May 3, carrying a large blue laundry basket with a large trash bag, Stayton said. Vence returned three minutes later without the basket and was later seen leaving the apartment with cleaning equipment, including bleach.

In the car, the police found a laundry basket that looked like the one Vence had pulled out of his apartment, Stayton said.

More: "Where is my baby?": A car was found but four-year-old Maleah Davis still missing, police say

The police described Vence as Maleah's father-in-law, but Bowens said through a spokesperson that Vence was his former fiancé.

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.

The Houston Chronicle announced that Maleah's grandmother, Brenda Bowens, had tried to place the children at home instead of placing her in a foster home when child protection services began an investigation to count of the month of August.

Contribute: The Associated Press

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