On Tuesday morning, a girl from Las Vegas passed a note to her elementary school teacher. It was from her mother, and the content was disturbing.
Her mother wrote that she was being held against her will in the house and that she feared for her son, the girl’s younger brother, and did not know where he was, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said in a statement. statement on Wednesday.
The teacher shared the note with the Clark County School District Police Department, who contacted Las Vegas Police Lt. Ray Spencer. said reporters on Tuesday evening. According to him, it was a “tragic situation.”
The police rushed to the house at the address indicated by the mother. They found the mother and her boyfriend, Brandon Toseland, 35, leaving home, Lieutenant Spencer said at a news conference.
The statement said police questioned the mother, who said Mr Toseland abused her and that she believed her son might be dead. She said she had not seen her son since December.
“She was not allowed to leave the house, and she could not go into the garage of the residence,” said Lieutenant Spencer.
The authorities found a freezer in the garage. Inside, according to Lieutenant Spencer, officers found “the remains of a preschool child.”
Mr. Toseland was arrested and held at the Clark County Detention Center in Las Vegas on one count of open murder and two counts of kidnapping, police said. It was unclear whether Mr. Toseland had a lawyer.
The police did not identify either the mother, or the daughter, or the son. A Police Department spokesman declined to explain the circumstances of the boy’s death on Wednesday afternoon.
A GoFundMe fundraiser started by the son’s family identified the boy as Mason Dominguez, 4.
“Knowing that we will never see Mason again hurts,” wrote Ariel Lopez, who organized the fundraiser.
Mason’s father died a year ago, according to a fundraiser, and the family was raising money to buy the boy a burial site near him.