Arkansas boy, 6, found buried under floorboards at home was ‘drowned’ by mom’s boyfriend ‘in a toilet bowl as punishment’ – Ashley Rolland, 28, and Nathan Bridges, 33, face murder charges
Arkansas boy, Blu Rolland, 6, found buried under floorboards at home in Moro, Arkansas on what would have been his sixth birthday, Dec. 16
Authorities in Lee County believe the boy had been dead for at least three months, prior to the discovery of his remains
Newly filed court documents reveal that Ashley Rolland, 28, told cops that her son Blu was killed by her boyfriend Nathan Bridges
Ashley Rolland, admitted that Bridges also injured her surviving 6-year-old daughter during his alleged tirade last September, after
The mother-of-two initially claimed that the wounds were not burns, but were caused by an allergic reaction
Cops were tipped off to the couple’s alleged misdeeds by the children’s paternal grandmother
The mother told cops Bridges held her son’s head in a toilet bowl as ‘punishment’
The pair both face charges of capital murder and host of other felony charges

Blu Rolland was found dead and buried under the floorboards of his home in Moro, Arkansas, last week.
New filings said the little boy died three months earlier after being drowned in a toilet bowl by his mother’s live-in boyfriend.
The disturbing information contained in newly filed court documents revealed the disturbing discovery uncovered by officers investigating Blu’s death after his body was found by police on December 16, on what should have been the occasion of his sixth birthday.
According to an arrest affidavit filed Tuesday in Lee County Circuit Court, the currently incarcerated mother of the youngster, 28-year-old Ashley Rolland, confided to cops that Blu was killed by her boyfriend Nathan Bridges.
The mother-of-two who is seen with a black eye in her Saturday booking photo, told officers that Bridges, in a fit of rage, held her son’s head in a toilet bowl as ‘punishment’ for biting the his finger.
The victim’s age was not immediately clear, because while Arkansas State Police said he was six years old, court documents state that he was born December 16, 2017, which points to the fact that the child’s corpse was found on his sixth birthday.
Blu’s grandma, Karen Rolland, said the boy would have turned six last week.


A day after the grim discovery the child’s mother was arrested.
Ashley Rolland who was sporting a black eye in her mugshot, in her police interview admitted to cops that Blu died September 9, after the alleged drowning. She faces charges of capital murder, abuse of a corpse, tampering with physical evidence, endangering the welfare of a minor, and two counts of permitting child abuse.
It was not immediately clear why she has a black eye in her booking photo.
Her live-in boyfriend Nathan Bridges, 33, faces the same charges as his lover except the ones alleging child abuse. He reportedly has been uncooperative, declining to be interviewed, according to the affidavit.

According to cops, Rolland told investigators that Bridges also injured her surviving 6-year-old daughter during his alleged tirade last September.
The injuries, which medical examination revealed to be severe burns, allegedly were inflicted on the girl by Bridges who also held her head under water ‘as punishment for her behavior issues,’ the filing further alleges. In this case however, officers wrote, that the water was scalding hot.
However, Bridges eventually released the child before she could succumb like her brother.

Bridges has been ordered to have no contact with Rolland’s surviving child, investigators wrote in another document filed Monday.
The discovery comes after detectives aired beliefs that the fatal injuries sustained by Blu that led to his death were delivered well before their discovery under the floorboards of Bridges home in Moro, 85 miles east of Little Rock. Authorities believe the boy had died as ‘long as three months ago.’
Cops were tipped off to the couple’s alleged misdeeds by he children’s paternal grandmother, Karen Rolland, the bombshell affidavit also revealed.

The tipster, whose son is the children’s father, called police after her son arrived to pick up his children for a court-ordered visit, at which point Ashley Rolland brought out her daughter, who ‘had apparent injuries that had scabbed over on top of her head,’ police wrote.
The mother initially asserted that the wounds were not burns and that they were caused by an allergic reaction, the affidavit states – with Karen Rolland telling officers the girl ‘could barely even walk’ and that her clothes were soiled in urine.
Her first request, the grandma recalled, was for ‘water and something to eat.’
Heartbroken, Karen told police that she ‘told her that she was safe,’ while recalling the look on the youngster’s face as one of ‘sheer terror.’


A crowd funding writ up says that not only was the little girl’s hair cut off, she was suffering from malnutrition, cracked ribs, and several burn marks on her body, only some of which were recent.
‘These injuries are presumed to be from her mother and the mother’s boyfriend,’ a family friend explained on a recently erected GoFundMe page.
Blu, meanwhile, was noticeably absent. In an attempt to explain this, police wrote that her former daughter-in-law simply stated that the child ‘was not at the residence.’
After rushing her granddaughter to the hospital, Karen said that she contacted police ‘to report she had information that Blu was possibly deceased,’ the affidavit states.
When county deputies arrived, they were met by Ashley Rolland’s father, Timmy Childers, 62, who told them that his daughter admitted to him that the boy was dead inside the home.

Officers who entered the home would then find ‘newly nailed-down boards’ and ‘disturbed earth underneath’ on the floor of the home, the filing states – and under the first layer of dirt, they found a child’s flip-flop, a red and blue blanket and ‘the pungent odor of decay.’
They quickly obtained a search warrant, and removed more flooring and dirt to discover ‘an unidentified mass believed to be a small human body wrapped in multiple layers of plastic bags.’
They then transferred the corpse to the Arkansas State Crime Lab, where it is currently being analyzed.
The director of the crime lab, Kermit Channell, said last week that the state medical examiner will release a cause and manner of death in the next 30 to 60 days.
Ashley Rolland, meanwhile, gave officers a somewhat dubious account of who buried the body, with police writing that she initially told them she had been in another room at the time of the alleged drowning.

She said that when she went into the bathroom after Bridges left it, she saw her son ‘struggling to breathe, and his body was limp.’
She then told officers that Bridges ‘cut a hole in their wooden floor, dug a hole in the ground, and buried [Blu] under the house,’ the affidavit says.
However one of Ashley’s acquaintance, Rebecca Fiting, told police that Ashley had previously told her that ‘Blu had come out of the bathroom with his face and body swollen, foaming in the mouth before collapsing and dying.’
Fiting adds that Ashley Rolland at the time insisted that ‘she did not know what to do and had buried Blu under the floorboards,’ according to the affidavit.
Karen, meanwhile, said that she had known the children were living in an unstable environment, and that she also been trying to gain custody for over a year.
The children’s grandmother said that she had known the children were living in an unstable environment, and that she also been trying to gain custody of the kids for more than a year.
Karen Rolland since has successfully filed a petition for guardianship of her granddaughter through an emergency order granted on Wednesday, as authorities investigate the cause of her injuries.
The suspects Ashley Rolland and Nathan Bridges remain in custody.
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