A Virginia felon was sentenced to 20 years in prison Friday for desecrating the remains of his 23-month-old daughter whose dead body he stuffed inside a suitcase and kept hidden in a Jersey City home until he dumped it near Journal Square in 2018.
Travis Plummer will have to serve 10 years of the sentence for desecrating the remains of Te’Myah Plummer before being eligible for parole. The toddler was wrapped in plastic bags and Plummer sprinkled it with carpet cleaner when it began to decompose in order to avoid detection.
The child died of unspecified violence and cocaine intoxication. She was in the suitcase for some six months, including a bus trip to New Jersey and several months when it was hidden in the Jersey City home of one of his friends.
Plummer has NEVER been charged with killing the girl.
Plummer has prior convictions for possession of a deadly weapon by a prisoner, distribution of cocaine, distribution of cocaine by a felon, abduction by force and two counts of child abuse or neglect.
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In 2005, Plummer pleaded guilty to child neglect after his 8-month-old baby boy, Etreyu, drowned in a bathtub. In that case, he was originally charged with felony child abuse and manslaughter.
“This is the fourth child in the defendant’s care and the second to die,” Seborowski told Arre while arguing for the 20-year sentence. She said even a lengthy prison term will be temporary.
“This is going to happen again,” she warned.
Plummer discarded the suitcase and body on the train tracks at Journal Square and it remained there for about a month before being found on April 11, 2018. After the body was found, authorities learned that the girl and Plummer had been reported missing from Richmond, Virginia and were last seen in the summer 2017.
Eight days after Te’Myah’s remains were discovered, federal authorities arrested Plummer in Puerto Rico and he was extradited back to Hudson County.
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Arre said Plummer has shown “a particular pattern that consistently shows women and children as the victim of his violent acts.” The judge noted Plummer’s previous offenses and said, “This is the type of defiance of the law that shows a clear risk of re-offending.”
When asked if he had anything to say before being sentenced, Plummer shook his head. His attorney, Andre Vitale, said Plummer suffers from mental illness, complicated by drug abuse.
Vitale urged Arre not to sentence his client for what may have happened to Te’Myah in Virginia, and remind him that Plummer was convicted of desecration of human remains and not homicide.
Desecration of human remains carries a sentence of five to 10 years in prison, but Plummer’s criminal record made him eligible for an extended prison term as a persistent offender.
Travis Plummer was sentenced to 20 years in prison on June 21, 2019 for desecrating the remains of his toddler daughter, Te’Myah Plummer.
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