Dad and girlfriend hid emaciated 9-year-old’s body in storage unit, KY officials say
A man and woman were sentenced to prison after officials say they hid the body of the man’s 9-year-old daughter in a Kentucky storage unit.
On Sept. 30, 2022, the Daviess County Sheriff’s Office was called to a residence in Owensboro for reports of a missing person, according to a criminal complaint obtained by WEHT.
The caller told authorities that a couple, along with their children, had recently been living with them. The man had three children from a previous relationship, and the woman had two children, the court document said.
However, the caller said one of the man’s children was not there. The caller said the woman told them the child was in the hospital, according to the complaint.
But the caller said one of the children told them that the couple killed the child while they were living in Indiana then put her body in a container, the complaint said.
Investigators searched the storage unit and found a plastic storage container with a trash bag around it and the lid taped shut, court documents said. When officials removed the lid, they found the child’s body decomposed wrapped in plastic, according to the complaint.
McClatchy News is not naming the man, woman or 9-year-old to protect the identity of the other children involved.
“She was playful, she smiled a lot, and she loved her siblings. And before she lived with her father, she was always at my mother’s house, and she really bonded with her,” the child’sgreat-aunt told WEHT.
When questioned by investigators, the father and his girlfriend both said that on Feb. 7, 2022, the father woke up and found the girl unresponsive while the girlfriend was at work, the complaint said.
The father said he tried to perform CPR on the child and called his girlfriend who came back to the house, according to the complaint. The two told investigators they were scared to report the girl’s death because they didn’t want to lose their other children, according to the court records.
The couple said they wrapped the girl’s body in a blanket and put it in a storage container, the complaint said. When they moved out of the house, they took the container with them, eventually putting it in a storage unit, according to the court document.
However, the couple’s children told authorities a different story.
Several of the children told investigators that the couple would often withhold food from them, choke them and force them to stay in the basement, according to the complaint. However, only the man’s three children were treated this way, not the other two children with the girlfriend, the kids said, according to the court document.
One of the kids told investigators that the father cried when the girl died, the complaint said. The child also drew a picture of the girl and said she was skinny.
Another child said the man’s three children had to sleep in the basement because they weren’t “real siblings” while the other two would sleep in the bed with the man and woman, according to the court document.
The woman pleaded guilty to abuse of a corpse, tampering with physical evidence and two counts of criminal abuse of a child under 12 years old, according to the Owensboro Times. She was sentenced to seven years in prison.
The father pleaded guilty to abuse of a corpse and tampering with physical evidence, the outlet reported. He was sentenced to five years in prison, according to WEVV.
Owensboro is about a 110-mile drive southwest of Louisville.
This story was originally published December 19, 2024 at 6:05 PM with the headline "Dad and girlfriend hid emaciated 9-year-old’s body in storage unit, KY officials say."
