Elijah Vue, Katrina Baur, and Jesse Vang (Two Rivers Police Department).
A Wisconsin woman and her boyfriend are charged in the death of her toddler son who went missing for months. Authorities announced charges during a press conference on Thursday. Elijah Vue, who disappeared at age 3 in February from the city of Two Rivers, was recently found dead by a deer hunter.
Prosecutors say his mother’s boyfriend, Jesse Vang, 39, killed him. Authorities do believe the child died around the time that the man reported him missing. They are not quite sure how he passed away, however. The medical examiner’s office in Fond du Lac County ruled that Elijah died from homicide by unspecified means, according to Green Bay CBS affiliate WFRV. Vang is charged with physical abuse of a child (repeated acts causing death), hiding a corpse and resisting or obstructing an officer, online records show.
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As previously claimed, authorities said that the mother, Katrina B. Baur, 31, put Elijah in Vang’s home for disciplinary purposes. Now they say that she told Vang to keep quiet while police questioned him about the missing child.
“Don’t say too much” or “Attorney K,” she allegedly messaged him, according to WFRV.
She claimed to authorities that she had worried that investigators were attempting to entrap Vang for drinking and taking medication while watching the child, they wrote.
“Ms. Baur allowed and sent the victim to the residence for boot camp and discipline,” Manitowoc County District Attorney Jacalyn LaBre said, according to WBAY. “She condoned it and allowed it to happen and left him there days before he passed away when she had the opportunity to remove him from that situation. Furthermore, he attempted to cover up his crime with the hiding a corpse charge where he did try to conceal where our victim was placed and, as the court was aware, it did take an amount of time for us to actually locate where the victim was, so he did try to conceal the crime as well.”
Baur is charged with chronic neglect of a child (consequence is death), neglecting a child, and two counts of resisting or obstructing an officer, records show.
Vang allegedly told authorities that he disciplined Elijah through means such as forcing Vue to stand and pray for periods of time, and preventing him from talking to Baur, according to WFRV. A picture on the mother’s phone showed the child wearing an eye mask and having apparent bruises on his jawline, the left side of his neck, and left arm.
Baur allegedly denied that these were injuries, or that she had even seen those injuries on him.
Authorities reportedly also said that in examining Elijah’s remains, they found that his skull had a healing fracture consistent with child abuse.
Baur and Vang were initially charged in a child abuse case in connection to her son’s disappearance.
Other alleged evidence against the boyfriend include Elijah’s apparent DNA in a suitcase and also that Vang was familiar with a street near where Elijah’s remains were found.
In the press conference on Thursday, LaBre asked the media and the public to respect the privacy of Elijah’s family.
“Elijah was a young boy whose life was tragically cut short and his death has impacted not only his loved ones, but Two Rivers, the Two Rivers Police Department, the sheriff’s office, our partners in the FBI, and the Department of Justice criminal investigations, and other agencies who have worked tirelessly on this case,” she said. “Our priority has always been to insure a fair and just process, and today’s announcement is a reflection of our commitment to upholding the law and seeking justice for Elijah.”
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