Police in Las Vegas searching for mother of murdered 7-year-old Liam Husted
The child was last seen alive traveling with his mother, 35-year-old Samantha Moreno Rodriguez
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The Las Vegas police have issued an arrest warrant for a mother after the body of her seven-year-old child in a forest was identified as her son.
DNA testing confirmed the child found dead outside of Las Vegas last month was Liam Husted, also known as Little Zion, of San Jose, California.
The child was last seen alive traveling with his mother, 35-year-old Samantha Moreno Rodriguez.
Ms Rodriguez has been accused of killing the young child and a warrant was issued against her, homicide Lt Ray Spencer announced at a news conference on Monday.
Investigators have not revealed why they were looking at Ms Rodriguez as being responsible for the child’s death.
”There’s nothing that would indicate any prior abuse that we’re aware of,” Mr Spencer said.
Hikers discovered Liam’s body in the town of Mountain Springs, Nevada, which was about 30 miles outside of Las Vegas, on the morning of 28 May. Investigators have said the body was likely placed on the trail that previous evening.
Police first struggled with identifying the child at first after distributing a sketch of Liam.
One woman came forward believing the unidentified child might be hers, but it was later revealed that the child was safe and on a camping trip with his father and brother.
Then a woman in San Jose grew concerned after not seeing Liam or his mother for two weeks. After viewing the sketch, she noted the resemblance to the child.
“Over the last 10 days we have put in a tremendous amount of resources,” Mr 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.”
A nationwide warrant has now been issued for Ms Rodriguez.
The woman was spotted in her vehicle, a dark blue 2008 Dodge Caliber hatchback with the California license plate 6WLH211, near Grand Junction, Colorado on 29 May, police said.
Then she checked into a Denver hotel on 31 May and that was the last time the woman was seen, authorities added.
Anyone with information is asked to contact the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department’s homicide tip number at 702-828-3521.