Mom charged with murder 23 years after 5-year-old son found 'significantly decomposed' near cemetery
07/13/2022 12:48 pm PDT
DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. (TCD) -- District Attorney Sherry Boston announced this week that a 45-year-old woman has been charged with her son’s death after he was found near a cemetery over 20 years ago.
According to the DeKalb County District Attorney’s Office, a grand jury returned an indictment against Teresa Ann Bailey Black for two counts of felony murder, two counts of cruelty to children, aggravated assault, and concealing the death of another in connection.
On Feb. 26, 1999, William DaShawn Hamilton’s body was found "significantly decomposed" near a church cemetery in a wooded area near Clifton Springs and Clifton Church roads. The medical examiner at the time determined the child was a Black male between the ages and 5 and 7 and had been dead for three to six months. He was reportedly wearing a blue and white plaid shirt, red jeans, and brown Timberland boots.
Hamilton’s cause and manner of death were undetermined. In a press conference, Boston said the little boy became known as "Young John Doe" or "Clifton Doe," due to where he was found.
The District Attorney’s Office said the case went cold despite new renderings by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and other media attention. Then, in May 2020, a tipster who reportedly knew Black and her son in 1998 called the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children after an updated facial reconstructing rendering came out, which caused the DeKalb Police Department and District Attorney’s Office to pick up the case again.
Investigators reportedly collected DNA evidence from Black and it linked her to Hamilton’s remains.
According to the District Attorney’s Office, Black was living in Charlotte, North Carolina, but she took her son "abruptly" out of school in December 1998, and the two moved to Atlanta. She then reportedly returned to Charlotte in 1999 without her son and "told differing stories about his whereabouts at the time."
Black was reportedly likely receiving assistance from the Atlanta Day Shelter for Women and Children, and anyone who might have known her or her son in the Atlanta metro area in 1998 or 1999 is encouraged to contact law enforcement.
Black was arrested in Phoenix, where she lives, and is awaiting extradition to Georgia.
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