Remains found in Arkansas identified as being those of a 4-year-old missing

June 3, 2019, 15:35 UTC / Update On June 3rd, 2019 at 15:54 UTC

By Janelle Griffith

The remains of a child's body found Friday in Arkansas were identified Monday as those of Maleah Davis, a 4-year-old missing girl from Texas.

The cause and death mode of Maleah are awaiting further testing and investigation, told NBC News Michele Arnold, public information officer at the County Court's Institute of Forensic Sciences Harris.

Sheriff James Singleton of Hempstead County, Arkansas, announced Friday that a black garbage bag with foul odor and blood containing had been found in Fulton.

Malah was reported missing on May 4 by his former fiancé, Derion Vence. She was reportedly murdered, officials said.

Police began searching in Arkansas after Quanell X, a civil rights activist who was until recently a spokesman for Maleah's mother, said that Vence had confessed to him that "there is no such thing as". he had killed the girl and left her body along a road to Hope. miles from Fulton.

His mother, Brittany Bowens, had previously told NBC News that Maleah was physically abused by Vence, who was arrested on May 11 for the girl's disappearance.

Bowens said that she believed that Vence had harmed the girl.

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.

Vence confided that he was going to the George Bush intercontinental airport to retrieve Bowens, who was on a flight back from Massachusetts, when Maleah was kidnapped by three men who released him, he and his two-year-old son, after having kidnapped them all three.

Vence said the silver Nissan Altima in which he was traveling had been taken during the kidnapping, but a surveillance video showed that the vehicle had been used to drop him later in a hospital where he had died. 39 first reported the disappearance of Maleah, police said.

Vence was accused of tampering with evidence, including a human corpse, after the smell of rotting human remains was detected in the trunk of a car that he was driving, according to court documents.

Images from a neighbor 's house showed that before leaving to look for Maleah' s mother at the airport, Vara had been seen carrying a laundry basket full of l '. apartment that was later found in the trunk of the Nissan with a gas can. The police also said they found blood in his apartment, linked to Maleah.