1-year-old girl found dead in hearse was strangled by mom, Alabama cops say

A mom is accused of killing her 1-year-old daughter and leaving her body in a hearse outside an Alabama funeral home, according to authorities.

Terica Pearl, 29, is now charged with capital murder, according to the Gadsden Police Department and Etowah County jail records.

A young child was found dead in a vehicle outside the West Gadsden Funeral Home the morning of Aug. 9, police said in a news release.

The funeral home’s director, Dantez Robinson, went on Facebook Live to explain that he hadn’t locked the hearse the night before. Then in the morning, the funeral home groundskeeper went to move the hearse when he noticed a dead toddler inside.

“He was just shocked,” Robinson said.

The groundskeeper called him, and Robinson said he was in disbelief until he saw the scene for himself, then he called the police.

Officers arrived and said they began investigating with “little to no information to work from” at first.

But less than 12 hours later, police arrested the child’s mother, according to WBRC. She was booked in jail at around 2 a.m. Aug. 10.

Court records revealed the 1-year-old had been strangled to death with a “thick robe string,” AL.com reported.

Robinson, who identified himself as the assistant coroner for Etowah County, said he’s witnessed a lot of deaths as part of his job.

“But to see something like this, really sent me into another level of shock,” he said.

Gadsden is about a 60-mile drive northeast from Birmingham.