Mom arrested in son’s death — after another woman said he was her son, Vegas cops say
Las Vegas police have identified the dead boy found on a trail and arrested his mom in connection with his death.
Police said they found the body of an 8-12-year-old boy late last month in Mountain Springs near State Route 160. The boy, found lying on a forest trail, was pronounced dead at the scene. Police released a digitally enhanced photo of the boy in an effort to identify him.
Authorities said Monday they identified 7-year-old Liam Husted as the deceased boy and that they were looking for his mother, Samantha Moreno Rodriguez, 35, of San Jose, California.
Rodriguez was arrested Tuesday morning in Denver, Colorado, and will be booked into a jail pending extradition to Las Vegas, police said in a tweet.
Metro police Lieutenant Raymond Spencer said that they worked with San Jose police to identify the boy, CBS News reported.
“Over the last 10 days, we have put in a tremendous amount of resources,” Spencer said. “We had detectives working through hundreds of leads in an effort to identify the victim. … After looking at those photographs, we believed that there was a very good possibility that the missing person case that they were working in San Jose was related to our homicide investigation.”
Spencer said they identified Liam’s body after a family friend sent in a tip about Rodriguez and the boy. Authorities collected his DNA from a pillow and clothing in San Jose, according to the publication.
Rodriguez had been traveling with her son and left San Jose on May 24 for Southern California and Nevada, according to Spencer, KTNV reported.
Rodriguez checked into a hotel by herself in Denver on May 31, police said, according to the station.
Rodriguez was last seen driving a blue 2007 Dodge Caliber with California license plate 6WLH211, according to Vegas police.
Police said Liam’s father has been contacted and they determined he wasn’t involved, the station reported. Rodriguez’s car was also fully packed, and police don’t believe other people were in the car.
The boy’s body was previously misidentified by another woman as her 8-year-old son, McClatchy News reported. The mom said that her son was last seen with his 11-year-old brother and their father, Jose Montes-Herrera, 37, according to police.
Both boys and Montes-Herrera were found alive and safe in Utah, where they were camping without cell reception, authorities said.
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