Police in Arizona arrested a 38-year-old mother on suspicion of killing her young daughter and placing her body in a large trashcan on Christmas Eve, according to reports.
Police said officers received a call about a body found in a trash can by a business near 31st Avenue and Thomas Road at about 8 p.m. on Sunday, according to a news release from Phoenix police. They found the body of a young female, who appeared to be between the ages of 5 and 7 inside a small plastic storage tote.
Officers received a call from someone in New York on Monday who said 38-year-old Sophia Simmons had told them she’d beaten her daughter and “it went too far,” according to court records. Simmons reportedly told the caller that she’d left her house after beating the girl and that she was not breathing when Simmons returned, documents state.
The caller, who had known Simmons since the early 2000s, told police that Simmons said she placed the girl’s body in a trash can five days after the fatal beating, according to court records.
Detectives got a search warrant for Simmons’ home but Simmons was not home at the time, according to police. At the home, evidence suggested that someone had attempted to clean up a crime scene, police said.
The home appeared to have been emptied, court documents state. The couch was on the patio with cushions missing. There was water on the floor, on cabinets and in the smoke detectors on the ceiling, according to court documents.
Court documents showed that Simmons’ phone was in the area where the body was found at about 10 a.m. on Sunday.
Video from a neighbor’s home taken shortly after showed Simmons washing the outside of her vehicle, court records state. She was also seen carrying a large white trash bag over her shoulder and placing it in the backseat of the vehicle.
Phone records showed that Simmons was in California and was traveling eastbound back to Arizona, court documents state. She was detained by officers in Tonopah.
Family members have identified the child as Dior.
Simmons was booked into a Maricopa County Jail and was being held on a $1 million bail. She was charged with first-degree murder, 2 counts of child abuse, abandoning a body and tampering with physical evidence, according to court records.
Simmons was set to appear in court on Jan. 2.
The investigation was ongoing and the medical examiner’s office was doing an examination, police said.
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