Mariha Smith, 5, Missing. Detroit. deceased.

[RaisingAPrince]

DETROIT -- An Amber Alert has been issued after a 5-year-old girl was reported missing from her home in Detroit.

Police say Mariha Trenice Smith last was seen about 3:30 a.m. Sunday and her mother discovered her missing about noon that day, and called police.

Police say the mother found a window open at the home. An Amber Alert was issued Sunday evening.

Police say early Monday they have no updated information to release.

Anyone with information on the case was asked to call 911, Detroit police or the FBI.

http://abclocal.go.com/wtvg/story?sectio...id=8269343

[Lady Cop]

what i know about this case so far alarms me. i don't trust the mother's story. and there is a burned body of a child waiting to be IDed.
they also have a "person of interest".
she has no dental records, but matches the description.






DETROIT - The mother of a 5-year-old Detroit girl reported missing over the weekend said she will submit to a police lie detector test, and authorities were trying to identify the charred body of a slain child found in a burning abandoned building.

Detroit Police Officer Dan Donakowski said investigators haven't found evidence to suggest the two cases are linked, but they are not ruling anything out.

Officers were searching the area near the central city-area home of Konesha Smith and her daughter, Mariha Trenice Smith.

Smith reported Sunday that her daughter was missing, a few hours after the child's body was found in a burning house about a mile from Smith's home.

Smith told officers she last saw Mariha about 3:30 a.m. Sunday asleep on a floor in one of the home's rooms, and that she didn't notice her daughter was missing until about noon. She also told police that a window in the house was "wide open."

Firefighters found the unidentified child's body at about 8 a.m. in a burning two-family flat on Waverly. The fire was being investigated as a possible arson.

An autopsy Monday morning revealed the girl was strangled and her death was ruled a homicide, said Dennis Niemiec, a spokesman for the Wayne County medical examiner's office.

"The little girl died before the fire," Niemiec said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. "ID will be determined through DNA."

The girl's skull also had been crushed, he said.

No other details about the autopsy were released.

Smith said police asked her to take a lie detector test, and that she expected to do so on Monday.

Authorities were asking anyone with information on the Amber Alert to call 911, Detroit police or the FBI.

[Lady Cop]

i have no confidence in mother's story.


Detroit Free Press
The Wayne County Medical Examiner's Office has ruled a little girl found dead in an fire in an abandoned building died in a homicide due to asphyxiation.

But the identity of the little girl, estimated to be 5 to 7 years old, won't be confirmed until DNA testing results, which could take days, Wayne County spokesman Dennis Niemiec said this afternoon.

"Her skull was crushed and she was burned, but the cause of death was asphyxiation," Niemiec said. "Whatever killed her occurred before the fire."

And while Detroit Fire Department investigators say the girl resembled 5-year-old Mariha Trenice Smith, missing since early Sunday, Niemiec said that cannot yet be confirmed.

"The ID is going to be through DNA, so we don’t have an ID yet," he said.

Mariha's mother, Konesha Smith, 24, said today that someone kidnapped the girl sometime between 3 a.m. and noon Sunday as she slept on the living room floor at her aunt's home near West Davison and Dexter.

"The way I'm looking at it is, someone climbed through the window and took my daughter," Smith said this morning, searching the neighborhood around Burlingame Street. "I can't even close my eyes because my daughter's missing."

A Detroit Fire Department investigator said Mariha's description matches the body discovered at 7:55 a.m. Sunday in the burning, abandoned home a few blocks away at 2918 Waverly.

Investigators also discovered a man bought 57 cents worth of gasoline from a service station on Davison just before the blaze.

Detroit Police Sgt. Eren Stephens said this morning that investigators issued an Amber Alert Sunday night after searching the neighborhood.

She said police do not have verified evidence linking the two cases and are continuing to look for Mariha.

“At this point, we’re searching for the little girl," Stephens said. "I’m not going into details of what we’re doing, but we are looking for the little girl.”

Smith said police asked her to provide dental records for the investigation, and she and members of her family have agreed to take lie detector tests today to rule themselves out as suspects.

Smith said after a get-together at the home Saturday night and into the wee hours of Sunday, Mariha was put to bed on the living room floor with three cousins at about 3 a.m.

Smith said she was asleep on the couch in the same room when someone took her daughter. She didn't realize Mariha was missing -- not watching cartoons in another room with her cousins -- until about 11 a.m.

"They think I'm a suspect right now, and I told them I never had anything to do with my daughter missing," she said. "They said they don't understand how someone can go over your head and take your daughter. I wish I knew! So, hopefully, after I take a lie detector test, they'll get up and start looking for her. I'm praying they've been looking for her."

Smith still hopes her daughter is alive, believing a claim by people in the neighborhood that they saw the little girl walking with a stranger a few hours after the blaze.


mother


house burned with dead child inside

[Lady Cop]

a lot of people in that house.

Mariha's mother, 24-year-old Konesha Smith, had a lie detector test at a Detroit police precinct starting at 9 a.m. this morning, family members said.

"She's taking it hard," Diane Henry (mother of 12) grandmother of Mariha, said of Konesha.


From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20110725/METR...z1T93846pJ

[RaisingAPrince]

How does someone not know their child is missing until NOON???? And especially when they were asleep on the floor of a house, not in a closed bedroom. I do not feel good about this at all. Poor Mariha!

[Lady Cop]

Det. Free Press

The mother of a 5-year-old who disappeared from her Detroit home this weekend said she is going to Sinai-Grace Hospital this morning for an oral swab so authorities can compare her DNA to that of a charred body found in an abandoned home.


Police, though, told the Free Press that a DNA sample was taken from Konesha Smith on Sunday and that she wouldn’t have to go to a hospital to provide a sample.

Smith said she is “holding out hope” that the body discovered on Waverly is not her daughter, Mariha Trenice Smith.


Mariha was discovered missing Sunday morning. Her mother earlier said she believed someone crawled through a window and kidnapped her daughter sometime between 3 a.m,. and noon Sunday as she slept on the living room floor. Konesha said she was drunk and passed out on the couch after a party at the home she shared with her sister in the 3800 block of Burlingame.


Detroit Police spokeswoman Sgt. Eren Stephens did not comment on the investigation this morning.


The Wayne County Medical Examiner’s Office earlier determined the charred body found on Waverly was a girl between the ages of 5 and 7 and that she died of asphyxiation before she was set on fire.


Outside the Waverly home this morning was a growing memorial, including a flowered white cross hung near the door, balloons and stuffed animals.


An official familiar with the investigation told the Free Press that Smith has said she couldn’t remember anything because she had been drunk and passed out on the couch after a gathering at the home she shared with her sister — and a polygraph test Monday indicates she was being truthful.


The girl’s aunt, who an official said had outstanding misdemeanor warrants, is still detained today for further questioning, the official said.

[Lady Cop]

DETROIT -- The mother of a missing 5-year-old Detroit girl said her sister, the girl's aunt, has been taken into custody after failing a polygraph test.

Konesha Smith, whose daughter -- Mariah Trenice Smith -- has been the subject of an Amber Alert since Sunday, told Local 4 on Tuesday she was informed by police that her sister, Quanita Smith, had failed a polygraph and was held.

Police said they are also questioning the aunt's boyfriend and another man who was seen in the house when the girl went missing.

Smith has said she thinks her daughter was kidnapped Sunday from their home on the city's west side after a family party. She has already taken a polygraph test.

Earlier in the day on Tuesday, Local 4 learned that a piece of black fabric with pink roses on it was found under debris where the body of a young girl was found Sunday after an arson fire in an abandoned home was put out. It has been sent to a crime lab.

According to the Amber Alert, Smith was last seen wearing a black shirt with pink roses on it.

[Lady Cop]

A vigil was held Tuesday night for dozens to gather in prayer for Mariha Smith. Shots were fired during the vigil in front of the home.

leave it to detroit.


news video:

http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/28661107/detail.html


Police were unable to get Mariha's DNA from the home where she was staying because other children there were known to share personal hygiene items, including toothbrushes, the official said.
Further complicating the process, Smith told police she doesn't know where her daughter's father is, the official said. (or who most likely)

[barbiexo]

DETROIT - A vigil for a 5-year-old Detroit girl reported missing over the weekend was disrupted by scuffles breaking out and the sound of gunfire.

No injuries were reported.

TV stations WDIV and WXYZ captured the sound of multiple gunshots at the Tuesday night vigil in Detroit for Mariha (mah-RY'-ah) Trenice.

The girl's mother Konesha Smith told officers she last saw Mariha about 3:30 a.m. Sunday asleep at home, and that she didn't notice her daughter was missing until about noon.

Smith said Tuesday she believes Mariha is alive.


link:
http://www.wnem.com/story/15154389/shots...ing-girl-5

[Lady Cop]

not surprisingly:

DetFreep

The charred remains of a little girl found in a home Sunday are those of missing 5-year-old Mariha Trenice Smith.

Dennis Niemiec, a spokesman for Wayne County, said the Wayne County Medical Examiner’s Office was notified by police this afternoon that a DNA test to determine the identity of the burned girl was positive for Mariha.

“We just got confirmation a little while ago,” he said.

He said the family has been notified.

we'll see where it goes from here. poor little baby girl. :(

[RaisingAPrince]

Poor poor little girl. These stories make me hug my little one a little tighter each night. I hope the truth comes out and whoever put this little girl through this is caught!

[Duchess]

All of these dreadful people should be encouraged to be spayed & neutered. Why isn't there an organization that does that? I wonder if that's legal, it would make a great charity & I could really market something like that given there are so many that share my opinion.

[IMaDick]

I was thinking euthanasia, there are some places in this country that have lived past their productivity,where crime and criminals seem to be the majority, those places should be eliminated for the good of mankind.

[Duchess]

I don't think I could garner much public support if I suggest we kill all the poor, dumb people so they don't have the opportunity to breed & multiply.

[IMaDick]

Do you think it would be better to just drop in a few hundred thousand weapons and let them kill each other and then just take out the winners?

[BlueTiki]

I don't think I could garner much public support if I suggest we kill all the poor, dumb people so they don't have the opportunity to breed & multiply.

Yeah . . . probably not a winner in Blue states.

Maybe . . . just maybe . . . if you tied it into deficit reduction then there might be some hope.

As long as you include an increase in taxes on the rich.

[Lady Cop]

the mother and entire bunch was evicted, are staying with a neighbor/friend. they'd like donations also. funeral Friday.

DETROIT.Com -- It has been almost a week since DNA testing confirmed the charred body of a girl found in a burned abandoned Detroit home on Waverly Street is 5-year-old Mariah Smith.

The girl's mother, Konesha Smith, has said she thinks her daughter was kidnapped from their home on the city's west side after a family party. She has already taken a polygraph test.

The mother told Local 4 that her sister, Quanita Smith, had failed a polygraph and was being held by police. Police said they were questioning Quanita Smith's boyfriend and two cousins.

Quanita Smith was eventually let go by police.

This past week Konesha Smith said she did not think her sister had anything to do with Mariah's death.

However, Konesha Smith said Wednesday at a fundraiser for Mariah that she is changing her mind about what Quanita Smith might know.

"(Quanita) knows something," Konesha Smith said. "If she wasn't involved, then she knows something."

Konesha Smith said police want to question her sister again, but no one can find her.

There are no suspects in the homicide case. Police have an unidentified person of interest. Surveillance video shows the man buying 41 cents worth of gasoline at a nearby gas station hours before Mariah's body was discovered at the burned house.

Konesha Smith said she wants anyone with information about her daughter's death to just turn themselves in so she can know why it had to happen.

She also said she wants her sister to turn herself into police.

[Lady Cop]

video and photos from funeral today. still no arrests. and i don't know yet if the sister/aunt showed at funeral.

link to video and photos:

http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/28774901/detail.html

DETROIT -- Funeral services were held Friday for 5-year-old Detroit girl Mariha Smith.

Nearly 300 people gathered at at Triumph Church in the city to pay their final respects.

Smith was reported missing July 24 from her home on Burlingame Street. A body matching her description was found just hours later a mile away in an abandoned house after an arson fire was put out. DNA confirmed the body to be Smith's.

There are no suspects in the homicide case. Police have an unidentified person of interest. Surveillance video shows the man buying 41 cents worth of gasoline at a nearby gas station hours before Mariha's body was discovered at the burned house.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is offering a $2,500 reward in the case.

Anonymous tips can be left at 800-SPEAKUP and online at www.1800SpeakUp.org.

[Lady Cop]

arrest just made.
The source says the man arrested is Mariha's aunt's boyfriend.
they did not attend funeral today. more info when i get it.

[Lady Cop]

a source says arrested person is Darnell Cheatham. not announced by police yet.