Update (March 16, 2019): The mother of Trinity Love Jones has been arrested in Texas and extradited to California in connection to the 9-year-old's homicide.
According to The Los Angeles Times, Taquesta Graham resided in Long Beach before police found her in the Lone Star State. Authorities booked the 28-year-old into the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Norwalk station on Saturday morning. She's currently held without bail.
"Homicide Investigators continue to vet community tips and follow up on additional evidence obtained during the investigation," according to an L.A. County Sheriff's statement. "The criminal case naming Taquesta Graham is being prepared for presentation to the District Attorney’s Office on a later date."
Graham has yet to be charged in the murder of the child, but her boyfriend, 38-year-old Emiel Hunt, has been charged with murder. No other suspects have been named in the case as of this report. Hunt is behind bars at a downtown Los Angeles jail on a $2 million bail, NBC News reports. Police are continuing their investigation and have ruled her death a homicide.
Trinity's body was discovered in a black duffel bag on March 5, some 20 miles east of downtown L.A. However, investigators are not sure how the girl was killed.
Original: A man was arrested for the death of 9-year-old Trinity Love Jones a week after her body was found in a California park stuffed in a duffel bag.
Emiel Lamar Hunt faces 50 years to life should he be found guilty of killing the little girl, according to KTLA. Family members identified him as the boyfriend of Taquesta Graham, Trinity’s mother.
Graham was taken into custody as a person of interest, but her current whereabouts have not been made public. Hunt is being held on a $2 million bond; he appeared in court but did not enter a plea.
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Hunt’s arraignment was rescheduled for April 16. Investigators believe Trinity was killed on or around March 1 but have not revealed the cause of her death. The arrest occurred one week after maintenance workers found Trinity’s body hanging out of a duffel bag at the bottom of an embankment. She was identified on Sunday, as Blavity previously reported.
"We seen the little girl's head, but at that point, we thought it was a little boy because you couldn't really see, like, everything," one of the maintenance workers, who requested anonymity, recalled. "She was covered up with grass, like the bush was kind of covering her hair, and then she was wrapped up in a blanket, and she was stuffed in a duffel bag."
Both Hunt and Graham have track records of harming children.
San Diego County District Attorney’s Office representative Tanya Sierra told The East Bay Times Hunt was charged with torture and two counts of felony child abuse in 2004. He pleaded guilty to one count of felony child abuse the following year. Hunt also confessed to inflicting great bodily injury on a child under the age of 5 while committing a felony or attempted felony. Those charges led to a 12-year prison sentence. Sierra did not reveal how much time Hunt served.
Graham became a registered sex offender after she was arrested for enticing a minor female for prostitution in 2009.
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