The hunt for a missing toddler came to a tragic end Friday evening when the child’s body was found inside an alligator’s mouth in the US state of Florida.
The father of Taylen Mosley, 2, was charged with two counts of first-degree murder: for the child and for the stabbing death of the boy’s mother, 20-year-old Pashun Jeffery.
Anthony Holloway, the police chief of St. Petersburg, said officers were investigating the area when they spotted an alligator with “an object in its mouth” inside Lake Maggiore.
Officers fired a round at the alligator killing it and forcing it to drop the child’s body.
Taylen’s body was retrieved, though police said it’s not yet clear how the boy died or if he was dead before he ended up in the lake.
Police had been searching for Taylen since Thursday afternoon, when they found Jeffery dead from “multiple stab wounds” inside her apartment after following a blood trail from her vehicle.
Thomas Mosley, Taylen’s father, was immediately named a person of interest after he checked himself into a local hospital with “cuts to his hands.”
Police wouldn’t say whether the injuries could have been sustained by Jeffery in self-defense, but Holloway said “nothing in our investigation leads us to believe that he is a victim.”
Mosley who is still in the hospital notably checked into the hospital without his son.
The department issued an Amber Alert and launched a major volunteer search for the boy out of extreme concern he was in danger.
Officers deployed dive teams in nearby retention ponds before moving 14 miles north of Taylen and Jeffery’s home, where they ultimately found the boy’s body.