The body of a 3-year-old North Carolina girl found in a creek last December — days after she was reported missing by her mother — was wrapped inside three plastic trash bags and a zippered couch cushion cover weighted down by a chunk of cement tucked inside, a new autopsy report revealed.
The report, released Wednesday, also confirmed earlier statements from authorities that Mariah Woods was killed by chloroform poisoning, but it offered no additional details to explain how, reports local TV station WXII.
Adolphus Earl Kimrey II, the live-in boyfriend of Mariah’s mother, Kristy Woods, is in jail and has pleaded not guilty to multiple charges that include first-degree murder and felonious child abuse inflicting serious bodily injury, according to news station WCTI.
Prosecutors have said they will seek the death penalty against Kimrey if he is convicted.
His attorney, Walter Paramore, did not immediately return a call seeking comment on Thursday.
Mariah’s mom has not been charged, and authorities have said she has been cooperating in the investigation.
The autopsy found no evidence the girl had been sexually assaulted and no apparent traumatic injuries apart from scrapes on her face and a bruise near her left eye, reports local station WRAL.
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Mariah’s death by chloroform toxicity was announced in January by the Onslow County Sheriff’s Office, which did not reveal how Mariah might have come into contact with the substance.
At the same time, authorities announced the murder charge against Kimrey — nearly two months after Mariah was reported missing in Jacksonville on Nov. 27. Her mother said she had vanished after she’d put her to bed the night before.
When authorities arrived at the home, they found no sign of forced entry. According to a police report, Kristy Woods told authorities “the last time she saw her daughter was around 11:00 p.m. when she went to check on her.”
Woods also told authorities that “her live-in boyfriend checked on the toddler again when she woke up, and told her to go back to sleep. Woods went to check on her the following morning, but alerted authorities at around 6 a.m. when she couldn’t find her.”
“My last memory of her was feeding her and putting her to bed,” Woods told local station WCTI at the time. “I told her I loved her and she loved me.”
Kimrey was initially arrested Dec. 1 on charges that included concealing a death and obstruction of justice. The next day, Mariah’s remains were found by a dive team in a creek in nearby Pender County.
According to his arrest warrant then, obtained by PEOPLE, Kimrey was accused of taking the girl’s body from the scene of her death and “knowing that Mariah Woods died from unnatural causes, the defendant acted with deceit and intent to defraud.”
The warrant also alleged that Kimrey “failed to notify a law enforcement authority of the death of Mariah Woods and secretly disposed of the dead child’s body knowing and having reason to know the body and human remains of Mariah Woods are of a person that did not die of natural causes.”