Arkansas Man Charged With Murder After Toddler’s Decomposing Body Found in Tupperware; Child’s Mom Also Arrested
An Arkansas man is accused of killing an infant and hiding the child’s body in a closet in his Fayetteville home for about two weeks, according to police.
Tyler Hobbs, 21, was arrested in connection with first-degree murder and abuse of a corpse. Maria Giron-Molina, 21, is the boy’s mother, and she too faces an abuse of a corpse charge, according to KTLA sister station KFSM in Fort Smith, Arkansas.
Hobbs said he choked and shook the 1-year-old boy on Oct. 15th because the toddler wouldn’t calm down, according to a preliminary arrest report. Hobbs said the boy hit and scratched him and then he blacked out.
When Hobbs came to, the boy was dead and didn’t respond to CPR, the station reported.
Hobbs stated he was high on marijuana, “freaked out,” and put the boy inside a Tupperware container. He then wrapped the container in blankets and put it in a closet inside his bedroom, according to the Fayetteville Police Department.
The body was in an “advanced state of decomposition” by the time the remains were found, police said, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Giron-Molina told investigators that she saw blood on the sheets, changed them and put the bloody ones on the closet floor, after Hobbs told her the boy fell at the park.
She also told investigators she was afraid of calling police after her son’s death because she didn’t want her other children taken away, according to the report.
Police said the couple planned to give her other two children to relatives before contacting authorities.
Hobbs turned himself in Monday and police found the boy’s body later that day at the couple’s home on North Leverett Avenue, according to police.
Police said the boy’s body showed signs of bruising near his jaw, eyebrow and eye.
Hobbs and Giron-Molina were being held Tuesday at the Washington County Detention Center on bonds of $750,000 and $500,000. The pair have hearings set for Dec. 4 in Washington County Circuit Court.