Where is little Maleah? Missing child captures city's attention
BBM: I copy and pasted some details I found interesting and had not read before. Interesting MD's brother is having nightmares. (I am new here, please let me know if I am not posting the right way)
Her brothers, ages 2 and 6, unaware she is missing, remain with relatives. A judge barred Maleah’s mother and fiancé, Derion Vence from seeing them. On Wednesday, Vence’s 27th birthday, members of their shellshocked families testified in court for
seven hours about the
boys’ care.
Maleah and her older brother shared the same father, Craig Davis, also 26. A child support order from 2016 made Bowens the primary caregiver, but
Davis could see the kids on certain weekends, Thursdays and holidays.
Davis in recent months sought to be involved in his kids’ lives, according to court testimony.
Vence delivered mail for 14 months in Rosharon, a small community in Brazoria County, until he left the postal service in August 2018 for undisclosed reasons, according to U.S. Postal Service records. He was also part of a company linked to several rap songs, including one on SoundCloud titled, “Murda Murda.”
CPS oversight appears to have been spotty after the children went home. The agency is allowed up to six months of supervision after a child is returned, with a caseworker expected to visit weekly for the first eight weeks and then at least monthly, spokesperson Tiffani Butler wrote.
In court on Wednesday, Bowens recalled that CPS visited maybe
two or three times after the children came back to live with her.
On April 8 —
roughly eight weeks after the kids returned
— the caseworker wrote that the agency
sought to be dismissed from the case.
Bowens did not typically let him take Maleah, according to testimony, and that evening Vence said he couldn’t see her because she had the flu.
Bowens told the judge she is not yet ready to care for the boys but wanted to visit. She thought about them daily, she said.
“I’m all they know,” she said.
Where is little Maleah? Missing child captures city's attention