Tyler Dasher, an one-year-old missing toddler from Affton, Missouri has been found dead in the woods just few hours he was reported vanished from his home.
One person has been arrested in connection with the death of Tyler Dasher.
The boy was discovered by dog walkers at 3:30 p.m. yesterday, one mile from his St Louis suburban home in Affton, and 100 ft from a busy main road.
It followed a frantic four-hour emergency services search for the child.
Toddler’s mother Shelby Dasher, 20, said she had put him to bed at 10:30 p.m. on Monday night.
Shelby Dasher told police she had then overslept, and when she awoke at 11:00 a.m. found the boy was missing.
At 5:42 this morning, St Louis County police issued a news release saying that a person had been taken into custody. They would not release any more details or say if it was a man or a woman.
STLToday.com reported that at 6:30 a.m., police escorted someone who appeared to be a woman to where the body was found and then to Tyler Dasher’s home.
Detectives conducted interviews through the night as they investigated Tyler Dasher’s death. Among those being interviewing were Tyler Dasher’s mother, father and grandmother.
A witness reported seeing an adult in a dark sweatshirt walking down the street, carrying a child wrapped in a blanket in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
But there was no signs of forced entry into the home where the child was sleeping.
St Louis Country Police chief said a medical examiner did not immediately determine the cause of death.
He told STLToday.com: “Anyone that would take a child into a wooded area like this needs to be dealt with severely by the criminal justice system.”
Police chief called for anyone involved in Tyler Dasher’s death to be brought to justice, but said that there were no immediate suspects.
Officer Rick Eckhard, of St Louis County Police Department, said: “There is no way to explain how this child got out of his crib, out of his room and out of the house.”
Yesterday an area near the cemetery was cordoned off with yellow police tape as force dogs sniffed the ground. A cluster of young adults cried and hugged as they looked on.
KSDK reported that mother Shelby Dasher filed a restraining order against Tyler Dasher’s dad Joseph Ellington in the fall of 2010. The order was cancelled one month later.
A local St Louis news outlet also reported that in March of this year, Joseph Ellington’s parents attempted to be named his legal guardians, claiming he is disabled.
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