Mom and BF charged as son, 6, found dead under house floor while his sister, also 6, suffers burn on scalp
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MORO, ARKANSAS: A six-year-old boy who had been abused was discovered dead in the hallway of his mother's house. According to reports, the Arkansas mother and her boyfriend were detained on suspicion of killing the child.
The remains of the toddler were buried beneath the hallway floor. As per the authorities, he may have been dead for up to three months, FOX News said. Police reported that a six-year-old child was also discovered inside the house with significant burns on her scalp. She has been sent to a hospital in Memphis and is doing well.
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Although it is not certain how the body was discovered, Ashley Roland, the children's 28-year-old mother, and Nathan Bridges, Roland's presumed boyfriend, 33, were detained. According to FOX, among the several counts against them are capital murder, abusing a corpse, endangering the welfare of a minor, and tampering with physical evidence. Lee County deputies called special agents to the Moro house crime scene which is about 75 miles from Little Rock, where they made the fatal discovery, according to state police. "Based on initial findings, it’s believed the boy died from injuries sustained in the home, possibly three months ago," the Arkansas Department of Public Safety stated in a news release. "The state medical examiner will determine the manner and cause of death," as per Fox news.
According to a GoFundMe website set up for the tragedy, the children's grandmother has supposedly been trying to get custody of them for more than a year. Anita Widby, a friend, wrote in the caption of the fundraiser that she obtained a court order allowing her to see the children on the weekends after following the correct procedures and "paying a ridiculous amount of money."
When she went to pick up her grandchildren on Friday, December 16, she was given the excuse that the girl couldn't walk and the boy was visiting a friend's house. The grandma hurried the young child to the hospital after noticing her chopped-off hair, starved body, bruised ribs, and scalp burns, according to FOX. "These injuries are presumed to be from her mother and the mother’s boyfriend," Widby stated in the GoFundMe. Later, the grandmom was told that the youngest grandchild's decomposing body had been found. According to FOX13, Roland and Bridges are still being held at the Lee County Jail while the investigation is ongoing.