A Mississippi couple was arrested and charged after the woman's 3-year-old son was found dead in a pond and his non-verbal sibling wandering in the streets alone.
The incident was first reported by a neighbor at around 9:30 a.m. Friday by a neighbor who said that a non-verbal boy entered her home.
Police went door to door for nearly an hour before finding the 5-year-old's home where the mom, 25-year-old Brooke Mallet, and her 22-year-old boyfriend John Walker said that they did not notice the child's disappearance.
Officers then learned that the child's 3-year-old brother was also missing prompting an intensive search that involved Warren County and Vicksburg Police.
The boy was unfortunately found dead in a pond miles away from his home. Mallet and Walker were subsequently charged with murder.
“This does not indicate at this point that they deliberately killed the child, but their actions or inaction created the situation that created the death,” Sheriff Martin Pace said adding that the boys were outside the home “for hours.”
“A very tragic situation,” Pace said.
