A Virginia trooper making a routine traffic stop discovered the badly decomposed remains of a boy who had been missing since 2004.
Tonya Slaton, the boy’s mother, was charged with concealing a dead body after her car was pulled over on June 6 for having an expired tag.
According to WTVR, Quincy Jamar Davis was last seen in 2004 when he was a 7th grader at a Virginia Beach Middle School.
Neither Slaton nor the boy’s stepfather — her ex-husband — reported him missing. The school also did not report Quincy was missing from class. The child was forgotten, until a Virginia trooper pulled Slaton’s black Mustang over on Interstate 64 in Hampton.
The state trooper ran a check on Slaton’s tag and it came back unregistered. The trooper called a tow truck and was in the process of taking inventory of the car’s trunk when he spotted a black foul smelling garbage bag wrapped in duct tape.
Slaton threw some clothes on top of the bag and she told the trooper more clothes were inside the bag.
But the trooper became suspicious and looked inside the bag. He discovered the 7th grader’s mummified remains.
A coroner identified the remains on Friday. No cause of death was given.
Slaton once served four years in prison for the attempted murder of her ex-husband in 2007.
According to the NY Daily News, Bernice House, Slaton’s ex-mother-in-law, said her son owned the Mustang but Slaton wouldn’t give it back to him after their messy divorce.
The car was still in her ex-husband’s name when it was pulled over on June 6.
Slaton’s ex-husband was not Quincy’s biological father, but he doted on the boy.
“He was crazy about that child. It is senseless. It has done something to my family to learn this. They just can’t believe it happened to Quincy,” House told WTVR.
House told the TV station she last saw Quincy in 2002 — before Slaton and her son divorced.
“I was thanking God that he woke up,” House said of her son. “I thank God he let her go. If she did something to her own son, what could she have done to mine?”
