Authorities in Michigan launched a manhunt for a couple accused of torturing and murdering their four-year-old daughter whose battered and burned body was found in a patch of woods on New Year’s Day. The couple was finally apprehended Tuesday in southern Georgia, just outside of Florida.
Relatives found the child lying in the woods near the Rawsonville Woods mobile home community in Belleville, Michigan. She was found unresponsive and covered in burns. The child was declared dead after being rushed to a local hospital, the New York Post reported.
UPDATE (12/05/18 @ 1045am):Defendant Candice Diaz, Gabrielle's mother has just been sentenced to a prison term of…
Posted by Sumpter Township Police Department on Monday, January 8, 2018
Medical professionals called the police due to the child’s horrendous injuries, and police then began looking for the child’s parent, Candice Renea Diaz, 24, and her boyfriend Brad Edward Fields, 28.
Police in Sumpter Township, Michigan, have charged the couple with felony murder, murder in the second degree, and first-degree abuse and torture of a child.
An autopsy not only declared the child’s death an act of murder, but the medical examiner also said that the child exhibited signs of battered child syndrome.
Fields already has a record for domestic violence, according to the Miami Herald. Police noted he will be charged as a habitual offender.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.