Mom and stepfather 'beat 9-year-old daughter to death and then blamed it on a hit-and-run'
Maya Thomas was killed on October 12 -Credit:Unknown (Unknown)
A mom and stepfather from New Jersey have been locked up after allegedly beating a nine-year-old girl to death and blaming her injuries on a hit-and-run car accident, according to Garden State law enforcement authorities.
India Miller, 27, and Sean Scott, 45, are accused of murder, child endangerment and making a false report to law enforcement officials, says the Paulsboro Police Department.
The investigation refers back to an incident which took place during the early hours of Tuesday, October 13 in Paulsboro, a small town in the wider Philadelphia metropolitan area.
Shortly after midnight, Scott called 911 to report that nine-year-old Maya Thomas had been hit by a car and was no longer breathing, according to court documents.
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A 911 dispatcher told responding officers after Scott’s call: “Sounds like CPR is in progress. Caller is advising my partner that the nine-year-old may have been hit by a car and is now in cardiac arrest.”
According to the child’s mom, she told investigators how she thought she heard tires screeching while her daughter was walking the dog. When the little girl was hospitalised, however, medics determined her injuries were not consistent with those obtained in a car accident.
Sean Scott is behind bars after calling police on October 12 for an alleged hit and run -Credit:Paulsboro Police Department
The medical team reported facial trauma, bruises all over her body and a number of broken ribs in various stages of healing, according to the police.
An autopsy of the child’s body later showed her left eye was swollen shut, that her colon was ruptured and that she was left with abrasions on her “inner thigh and intimate parts”.
At 6.42pm on the same day Scott called the police, the girl was pronounced dead. Her cause of death was determined to be a number of blunt force injuries.
After searching the family home, law enforcement discovered blood-soaked children’s clothes in a tub, blood on tiles in the bathroom and on numerous cleaning contraptions.
Surveillance footage obtained at the time of the accident also showed no vehicle traffic on the roads at the time the nine-year-old was supposedly hit by a car.
Speaking to a four-year-old sibling of the victim in an interview, the toddler recalled how Scott hit the girl in the eyes and face on the night in question.
India Miller is also facing time behind bars -Credit:Paulsboro Police Department
New Jersey’s Division of Child Protection and Permanency is investigating allegations of both physical and sexual abuse, according to an agency spokesperson.
Child Protection and Permanency told news outlet NJ it was first contacted about the alleged abuse on Tuesday when a call was made to the New Jersey Child Abuse Hotline by the Gloucester County Prosecutor’s Office.
Maya’s sibling, who does not share the sae father, is now in the care of CPS according to the same agency spokesperson. Neighbors expressed their shock after learning of the allegations.
Anthony Culpepper from Paulsboro said: “It’s horrifying. I don’t know her personally, but I do know her in passing.”
At the home, one woman left a stuffed animal in memory of Maya. “The horror of her last few moments. I couldn’t believe it. I thought of my kids. I thought of neighborhood kids,” said Bobbiann Wieland of West Deptford.
“I just wanted to come and lay a little squishy and let her know that she was loved. I didn’t know her, but she was loved.”
Miller and Scott are being held at the Salem County Jail. Their detention hearings are expected to be held via videoconference at 9am Tuesday, October 20. A pre-indictment conference for Miller and Scott is scheduled for December 3, according to court records.
Source: Crime
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