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Month-long search for missing four-year-old girl ends! Police confirm trash bag found near Arkansas freeway contains remains of Maleah Davis after her stepdad confessed dumping the body

Posted on June 1, 2019 by konniemoments in Assault, Crime, Domestic Violence, Homicide, News // 0 Comments

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Trash bag was recovered near Arkansas freeway contains the remains of a child after Derion Vance confessed to dumping his stepdaughter’s body
Derion Marquise Vence, 27, is being held in Houston jail on a charge of tampering with human remains
Houston police said on Friday that trash bag in Arkansas contained the missing four-year-old girl’s body
Autopsy will be needed on order to confirm it is the body of Maleah Davis who was reported missing April 30
Remains arrived in Houston by plane on Saturday morning for DNA testing 
Information delivered by activist Quanell X led police to dump site of the body, after her stepfather Derion Vence allegedly told Quanell that the girl died by accident  
Chilling images show Maleah entering Vence’s Houston residence on April 30, never to be seen again
Three days later Vence is seen leaving the apartment with a black garbage bag in a laundry basket
He told cops a wild story of kidnappers taking Maleah after holding him hostage along with his one-year-old son
Vence is the ex-fiancé of Maleah’s mother, Brittany Bowens, who Quanell has stopped representing because he found inconsistencies in her story 
Police search for Maleah Davis 1Police searchers made the grim discovery of a child’s remains inside a trash bag off this Arkansas freeway on Friday. The remains have been transported to Houston and confirmed to be the remains of Maleah Davis
Police search for Maleah Davis 2Police searche party followed the information provided by the child’s stepdad to the freeway in Hope, Arkansas
Houston Police Commander Michael Skillern, one of the officers who traveled to Arkansas, told reporters that authorities had found a child’s remains in a garbage bag near Interstate 30 close to Hope.
Community activist Quanell X said he spoke on Friday in jail with Vence, the ex-fiance of Maleah’s mother, who had claimed Maleah was abducted.
Quanell X said that Vence claimed Maleah had died accidentally, but then admitted to him that he dumped her body in Arkansas.
Quanell X had previously represented Maleah’s mother, Brittany Bowens, but cut ties with her recently saying he feared she may have withheld information about the case.
Sheriff James Singleton in Arkansas’ Hempstead County said workers found the bag, which had a foul odor coming from it, near Hope, about 30 miles northeast of the Texas-Arkansas border.
“If this is the little girl, we want to make sure that we treat it with respect and dignity,” Singleton said.
Executive Assistant Police Chief Finner said authorities won’t be able to confirm if the remains are those of Maleah until an autopsy is performed.
It was unclear how long the identification process would take, Finner said
Map of Houston, Texas to Hope, Arkansas 1Derion Vence led police 300 miles from Houston, Texas  to Hope in Arkansas where he says he drove out to dump his four-old stepdaughter’s body, after he ‘accidentally’ killed her
Finner said Maleah’s family had been notified of Friday’s developments in the case and he expects a murder charge will be filed in the case.
“We are here to make sure that little angel receives some justice and whoever is responsible we are going to hold them accountable,” he said.
Vence had claimed he, Maleah and his two-year-old son were abducted on May 4 by a group of men in a truck.
He said he and his son were freed the next day but the kidnappers kept Maleah and his silver Nissan Altima. Police said Vence’s story kept changing and didn’t add up.
Police arrested Vence and charged him with tampering with evidence, specifically a human corpse. He remains jailed on a $40,000 bond.
Meanwhile, the last known images of little Maleah alive show the four-year-old happily following her stepfather Vence into his Houston apartment on April 30.
She went inside and was never seen again.
Instead, three days later Vence was captured on surveillance camera emerging from the property alone, clutching a black trash bag believed to be containing Maleah’s remains.
Derion Vence 3The last time Maleah Davis was seen she is shown walking into Her stepfather Derion Vence’s home in Houston on April 30. Her remains was recovered 300 miles away in Arkansas, a month later
Maleah Davis 2In what is believed to be the last known image of Maleah Davis alive, the four-year-old is shown entering the Vance’s Houston apt in a pink tutu 
Derion Vence 2The suspect Derion Vence is seen leaving the family’s apt carrying a large black trash bag inside a blue laundry basket on May 3. The same day he claimed he was kidnapped along with Maleah and one-year-old son
The same day, Vence told police that he, his one-year-old son and Maleah had been kidnapped by unknown assailants.
He claimed that he and the boy had been released, but that the kidnappers had taken Maleah and the car.
It has also emerged that earlier on May 3, Vence would not allow Maleah’s father see the child when he came to check on her.
Craig Davis, the child’s father, and his sister went to the apartment where Maleah lived with Vence and her mother to check on the young girl, Davis said during a Wednesday court hearing.
Vence did not let them in, saying Maleah had the flu, and denied their request to see her as she was sleeping, Davis testified.
Community activist Quanell X came forward on Friday to say that Vence had revealed the location of the body in a conversation from behind bars.
Quanell claimed the location of where the bag was found matched where Vence told him he’d dumped her body.
But despite the heinous nature of his crime, in an exclusive interview with Fox26, Quanell claimed that Vence appeared more concerned about his public image than he did his impending murder charges during their meeting on Friday.
‘I was able by God’s grace to visit Derion,’ Quanell said. ‘He voiced his concerns about how he was being portrayed in the media. He was upset with Brittany. He thought he acted as more of a [parent than Maleah’s mother Brittany Bowens].’
 
Quanell X stopped on FOX 26 HoustonQuanell X [left], stopped by FOX Houton to discuss how he was able to get a confession from Derion Vence. He was struck by Vance’s demeanor, claiming he showed ‘no remorse’ and was more concerned about the public’s perception of him
Maleah Davis 5Maleah suffered a brain injury last year which she had to have surgery for. Police said she needed extra care because of it
Brittany Bowens 3Quanell X alludes to Brittany Bowens’ [photo] indifference to her daughter’s plight contributed to the tragedy. ‘That child was being physically abused and physically tortured in that house and they were covering it up. It’s a damn shame that her mother chose her mate over her own daughter,’ Quanell said
But Quanell revealed what stunned him most about his face-off with Vence was that he showed absolutely ‘no remorse’ for Maleah’s killing.
‘What hurt me [is] he had no remorse. He had no feelings of regret … and I can’t stop crying,’ an emotional Quanell admitted.
‘I had to stop myself from crying because he was so cold in this discussion with me. He cared more about what people think about him, than what he did with Maleah. There was no remorse.’
Theorizing why Vence would allegedly commit such an atrocious act, Quanell said he believed the stepfather snapped after finding out that Bowens was having an affair.
‘I asked him, ‘Are you a cold-blooded murderer?’ He said it was an accident … He wanted to make it clear everything he was doing for the children by himself.
‘He was cold. He had a cold spirit, almost like I don’t care spirit. That’s the part I expected emotions and remorse, there is none.’
Before eliciting the confession, Quanell briefly legally advised Maleah’s mother, Brittany Bowens, before announcing that he’d cut all ties with her this week.
‘I’m a father. I have daughters,’ Quanell told Fox26. ‘It was hard standing by Brittany’s side, but I had to do what I had to do to make sure I could find out everything – what happened to Maleah and where is she.’
Quanell alleges that he discovered early on with his time with Bowens that she had actively sought to cover up Vence’s abuse against her daughter on more than one occasion.
‘She never broke down in private conversations, always before the camera. She refused to ever say anything about Derion, even after charged with tampering with the body.’
Derion Vence and his one-year-old son 5Surveillance photo shows Derion Vence entering the hospital with his one-year-old son the day on May 4, after he said they were all taken captive
Vence’s confession comes nearly a month after he first reported Maleah missing on May 4.
He stumbled into a hospital with his one-year-old son claiming all three of them had been kidnapped by Hispanic assailants the day before while driving to the airport to pick up Maleah’s mother, Brittany Bowens.
Vence’s far-fetched version of events claimed the kidnappers let him and his son go but kept Maleah.
Police were quick to point out inconsistencies in his statements, saying he clearly wasn’t telling the truth but they initially failed to produce any evidence in rebuttal.
However, after the surveillance footage of Vence leaving the home with the trash bag was discovered police also found traces of Maleah’s blood in his car.
‘What happened to Maleah was an accident,’ Quanell X told The Houston Chronicle on Friday morning. ‘He says it was an accident. And he confessed to me where he dumped her body.
Brittany Bowens 1Quannell X [right], former spokesman for Brittany Bowens [left], Maleah Davis’ mother says Vence made the confession to him on Friday. He was less than impressed by his former client who alleges never showed any grief in private, but played to the public gallery over her missing daughter
‘He was very specific with the amount of distance and time.
‘When I was able to leave and look it up on my phone, he was to the point on the distance and time.
‘He said that he pulled over in Arkansas, got out of the car, walked to the side of the road, and dumped the body off the road.’
Quanell said he had met with the director of Equusearch, which works with the police in missing persons cases, to find her.
‘I think it’s true enough that I have an airplane lined up at 3 p.m. to fly a detective, and several officers to go up there and go ahead and start the search.’
But on Friday, a police department in Arkansas confirmed that Vence was on his way with them to the scene of where the bag was discovered to aid the investigation.
‘Maleah didn’t have to die. That little girl did not have to die,’ an emotional Quanell later told KHOU 11. ‘That child was being physically abused and physically tortured in that house and they were covering it up. It’s a damn shame that her mother chose her mate over her own daughter.’
Derion Vence's car 2The silver Nissan sedan derion Vence was driving when the alleged kidnap happened was found on Thursday at a shopping center in Missouri City, Texas, off Highway 6

Quanell had been representing Bowens, who maintains she had nothing to do with her daughter’s disappearance. This week  he distanced himself from her, claiming she too had changed her story.
Bowens says she was out of state when Maleah vanished. Rather than call 911 when her ex failed to turn up for her, she waited for someone else to collect her.
She then claimed that he had done ‘something’ with her daughter in revenge against her for dumping him and calling him homosexual.
Quanell has since claimed to have found his own evidence that Vence was molesting Maleah.
He insists that Bowens did not know.
Maleah was taken out of her mother’s care last year amid claims of domestic abuse. – She required surgery on a brain injury that her mother says she got by falling over.

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