A California couple was doing drugs when it is alleged that they discovered their baby was dead, prosecutors said.
They then shoved the baby’s body into a suitcase and threw the suitcase into a trash can at a mall, police said.
Adam Manson, 34, and Kiana Williams, 32, were arrested and charged this week with child abuse resulting in the death of their child.
They could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement.
Police received a tip that Jacsun Manson is no longer alive and may have been tossed in the trash ????According to witnesses, Jacsun was last seen on Dec. 31, 2018 with his parents, prior to their arrest.
由 National Center for Missing & Exploited Children 发布于 2019年2月25日周一
Work continues at the landfill as Culver City police search for the body of a missing Culver City infant at Waste Management El Sobrante Landfill in Corona on Monday, February 25, 2019. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG) pic.twitter.com/7A6oFfCZSQ
— TERRY PIERSON (@Fotogodterry) February 25, 2019
“We also believe that after his death, Adam and Kianna discarded Jacsun’s body in a dumpster somewhere near the (Baldwin Hills) Crenshaw mall in Los Angeles,” police said.
Jacsun Manson, 6 months old, went missing in December 2018 while his family lived at the Upward Bound House, a shelter, in Culver City. The baby was officially reported missing on Jan. 25.
Manson and Williams were both arrested on Jan. 3 after officers found them in a stolen car. Williams pleaded no contest and served 45 days in jail with probation after release while Manson pleaded no contest and was released and sentenced to probation, reported the Los Angeles Times. But he was arrested again in early February and is now being held without bail.
A search for the baby turned up evidence leading to the arrest and charges, though the evidence wasn’t made public.
Investigators are still looking for the body and began searching the El Sobrante Landfill in Corona on Monday but didn’t find any signs of the infant, Culver City police Capt. Jason Sims told NBC 4. The search was suspended on Tuesday and it wasn’t clear when crews would return to the landfill.
“We continue to strategize and plan for the best and most efficient way to search the El Sobrante Landfill for the remains of Jacsun Manson. We anticipate the search will resume in the near future,” the Culver City Police Department said on Wednesday.
Family members said the couple weren’t good parents and questioned why they were allowed to keep Jacsun. “They should have never (been given back) the child. They are two recovering addicts,” Adam Manson’s sister Aegina Manson told ABC 7. “A lot of it doesn’t make sense. There’s a lot of lies.”
She hoped for a while that the baby had been given to a friend because she confronted her brother shortly before Jacsun went missing and he cried and told her he couldn’t care for the baby.
Aegina Manson said she offered to care for the boy but never heard back from her brother.
“I’ve known it, I could feel it for a while,” Manson added to KTLA. “I told my mother around Christmas something is extremely wrong; this is on another level but I could feel that something was awry.”
She said her brother told her in early February that Jacsun was with Williams’s relatives.
#BREAKING PT Cruiser believed stolen by parents of missing 6-month-old Jacsun Manson found in Hyde Park area of LA, but no sign of infant pic.twitter.com/UPov67itVU
— CBS Los Angeles (@CBSLA) February 9, 2019
Williams and Manson, Jacsun’s parents, told ABC 7 that they did not kill their baby despite investigators saying Williams admitted to them that the baby was dead.
Adam Manson said that he’s talked multiple times with investigators.
“I keep asking them what else do you want me to say because I already told you all I know,” he told the broadcaster from jail. “That’s all I can do. All I can do is tell the truth. I can’t change the truth. All I can tell you is what I know.”
Asked whether they left the baby somewhere when they went out to a party on New Year’s Eve, Williams broke down in tears. She later said that Jacsun was a good baby.
