Remains of a child have been positively identified as those of a missing 4-year-old girl after being discovered by Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation investigators in Rush Springs last week.
The remains have been identified as those of Athena Brownfield, who went missing for the first time on January 10, according to the Oklahoma Chief Medical Examiner’s office.
The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation issued a statement saying, “There is no additional comment on the investigation from the OSBI due to a gag order filed in Caddo County District Court.
According to court records in the case against him, Ivon Adams, one of the carers for Athena when she vanished, reportedly beat her to death and buried her close to their former home.
Accusations against Ivon Adams include criminal child maltreatment and one count of first-degree murder, according to online court records for the Caddo County, Oklahoma, District Court. The charging document also mentions that his wife, Alysia Adams, is accused of two counts of criminal child neglect.
Alysia Adams has filed a not-guilty plea at a court proceeding.
A mailman in the Oklahoman town of Cyril saw Athena’s 5-year-old sister strolling around alone outside a house, which is how authorities first learned she was missing.
The affidavit for Adams’ arrest claims that during a January 12 interrogation, his wife, Alysia Adams, admitted to investigators that her husband beat Athena on Christmas Eve repeatedly until she stopped moving.
Related: Search For 4-year-old Oklahoma Girl Athena Brownfield Is Now A Recovery Operation
The court complaint claims that Ivon Adams then took Athena’s body and “buried her near a fence line” close to their previous house in Rush Springs. He allegedly also admitted to his wife that he covered the area with a “big broken branch.”
An affidavit in her case states that the kids’ biological mother left them in the couple’s care roughly two years prior, but they failed to enroll Athena’s older sister in school or take the girls for checkups at the doctor.
Since their detention, Ivon and Alysia Adams have remained in captivity.
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