The body of a two-year-old boy, Taylen Mosley, was found inside an alligator’s mouth in Florida, a day after he was reported missing on Thursday, March 30.
Officers from the St. Petersburg Police Department started their search for the missing boy after his mother, Pashun Jeffery, 20, was found dead in her apartment with multiple stab wounds.
An arrest report states that on Wednesday, Jeffery had thrown the father of Taylen, Thomas Mosley, a 21st birthday celebration at her Lincoln Shores apartment. The last time she and her son were seen alive was around 5:15 pm, when the guests left.
Mosley is then believed to have gone to the lake with his son before he turned up at his mom’s house alone, with severe cuts on his arms, at around 9 pm. From his mother’s house, he went on to St. Anthony’s Hospital.
Members of Jeffery’s family got worried when they couldn’t reach her and went to check on her at about 2:30 pm on Thursday. They asked the management to unlock the door and found her body with over a hundred wounds from stabbing and no trace of the boy and his father.
Police issued an Amber Alert for the toddler and conducted a massive search with a helicopter and drones.
Officers were in the Dell Holmes Park area when someone reported seeing what looked like a body inside an alligator’s mouth. They shot and killed the beast in Lake Maggiore, forcing it to drop the object in its mouth.
According to the police, the body was intact and it was unclear how the boy had died. They could not tell whether he had already been dead before he was in the lake.
St. Petersburg Police Chief Anthony Holloway, speaking to reporters after the boy’s body was found, said he was sorry the search had ended in tragedy.
The medical examiner is yet to determine the boy’s cause of death.
Police have charged Thomas Mosley, with two first-degree murder counts and he is being held without bail.
