Las Vegas mom in murder case admits she hit girl, report says
The mother accused of killing her 3-year-old daughter and stuffing her body in a duffel bag admitted to “striking” the child after she had peed her pants, a Las Vegas police report shows.
Aisha Yvonne Thomas, 29, was arrested Friday on a murder charge, one day after calling 911 to report that her daughter had wandered off while they were walking to a grocery store near Lake Mead and Hollywood boulevards, according to her arrest report.
Officers searched her nearby apartment but found nothing. Metropolitan Police Department homicide Lt. Ray Spencer has said that a family’s residence is typically the first place officers look for missing children, because they often hide in their own homes.
After discrepancies emerged in Thomas’ account, Spencer said, officers searched the apartment again.
That’s when a “wet, moldy smell” led officers to a closet in the master bedroom, the report said. Inside, the missing girl’s lifeless body was found in the bag, wrapped in white trash bags, the report said. The child was cold to the touch and had visible abrasions and bruises on the left side of her head.
In an initial interview with detectives after the girl was found, Thomas maintained that her daughter had gone missing during their walk. But in a later interview conducted at Metro’s headquarters, Thomas told police that she had backhanded the girl, “striking her on the left side of the head” after the girl wet herself.
Thomas said she left her crying daughter on the ground after giving her water, the report said. When she returned to the apartment after walking to a corner store, Thomas told police, the girl was unresponsive and “wrapped in a blanket.” In a panic, she hid her daughter in the duffel bag inside the closet, adding that she had wrapped her in the trash bags “to conceal the smell,” the report said.
As of Tuesday, the Clark County coroner’s office had not released the girl’s name or cause and manner of death.
Thomas was being held without bail Tuesday at the Clark County Detention Center, jail records show.
Her other three children, all younger than 3, were taken by Clark County Child Protective Services. Spencer said CPS had investigated the family once in 2017.
Contact Rio Lacanlale at rlacanlale@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0381. Follow @riolacanlale on Twitter.
