Authorities in New Mexico have recovered the remains of a young boy inside the ramshackle compound where 11 other children were found alive but malnourished in a raid on the site last week, the Taos County sheriff said on Aug 8.
Positive identification by autopsy has yet to be made, but the remains were believed to be those of a 3-year-old boy whose disappearance from his home near Atlanta, Georgia, eventually led to Friday’s search of the property, Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe told a news conference.
The compound, surrounded by tires and a trench, is located on the outskirts of the rural community of Amalia, New Mexico, near the Colorado state line, about 50 miles (80 km) north of Taos.
Hogrefe said the site had been under surveillance by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for some time as part of its search for the missing boy. The sheriff said he obtained a warrant to search the site after investigators in Georgia received an anonymous tip saying that children inside were “starving.”
The 11 surviving youngsters found there, described by Hogrefe as looking like “Third World country refugees,” were taken into protective custody by state child welfare authorities.
The missing boy’s father, suspected of abducting his son, and a second man accused of harboring him as a fugitive, were arrested at the compound the day of the raid, and three women presumed to be the mothers of the 11 children also were detained during the sweep.
The remains of a young boy were found on a return visit to the site on Sunday, on what would have been the missing child’s fourth birthday, Hogrefe said.
Source: EN
