The body of a 2-year-old boy, Taylen Mosley, who went missing in Florida has been found inside the mouth of an alligator a day after his mother was found stabbed to death.
Thomas Mosley, the father of the toddler, has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder, for the child and for the boy’s mother, 20-year-old Pashun Jeffery, the Associated Press reported.
St. Petersburg Police Chief Anthony Holloway said that the boy was found on Friday, March 31, when officers saw an alligator with “an object in its mouth” in a lake, which they quickly realized was the toddler’s body.
Officers fired shots at the alligator, causing it to drop the child. The reptile has since been euthanized, police said.
“We are sorry it has had to end this way,” Holloway said in a press conference.
Police said it’s not yet clear how the child died and whether he was dead before ending up in the lake, The New York Post reported.
Police had been searching for the child after they found Jeffery dead from multiple stab wounds inside her apartment on Thursday afternoon, March 30, at what police described as “a very violent crime scene,” according to AP.
Neighbours had heard a loud commotion near their apartment on Wednesday night, March 29, but police were not called.
Mosley, the boy’s father, checked himself into a local hospital on Wednesday night with cuts on his arms and hands. He was still in the hospital as of Friday night and is refusing to speak with authorities, police said.