A small body left inside a duffel bag has been identified as a four-year-old boy who went missing last year.
Damari Carter’s remains were found in a black Puma bag by a worker who was cleaning an alley in the Mantua area of West Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on March 18 and smelled an odor, said police.
The worker looked inside and made the grisly discovery.
Damari vanished in December and his remains were located less than a half mile from where he lived with his mother, Dominque Bailey, and her boyfriend, Kevin Spencer.
Bailey told family members that her son was hit by a car and died at a hospital.
However, police found her story to be inconsistent and began investigating in January.
Bailey later admitted to watching Spencer beat her son unconscious on December 7 and that it was not the first time. That day after Spencer struck Damari, the couple went to purchase Black & Mild Cigars and got back home to find the boy unresponsive.
Spencer put Damari on a wicker chair in the living room and Bailey said he was cold when she kissed him goodnight several hours later.
Bailey said she and Spencer put Damari’s body in a garbage bag and discarded it – but never told cops where.
Police used machinery to scour dumpsters and searched alleys across the neighborhood, and thought Damari’s body was lost in the garbage system.
‘I’m just glad that his remains were found,’ Damari’s aunt, Nakia Bailey, told The Philadelphia Inquirer on Wednesday.
‘Because that was sitting not so well with any of the family, us not knowing where he was. We’re still trying to wrap our heads around this situation happening at all.’
Damari’s mom has been charged with murder, abuse of corpse and other related crimes.
Nakia called Damari’s death ‘devastating’ and to this day does not understand why her sister allowed it to happen.
‘Innocence lost for what?’ Bailey said, choking back tears. ‘I’ll never get to see him grow up.’
Damari’s body was found just a week after a woman’s body was found stuffed inside a duffel bag in her apartment by her son.
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