Ohio officials said on Tuesday that a 13-year-old girl who was found dead on Monday was killed — prompting murder charges against her father.
Kei’mani Latigue was found dead in a burned-out home, and a Lucas County coroner revealed that she died from multiple cuts to her neck. She went missing from her Toledo residence on March 17 and was discovered a week later.
Latigue was weeks from her 14th birthday.
READ: Body Found in Burned-Out Home Amid Search for 13-Year-Old Girl
“This is one of the most horrific cases I’ve ever heard of,” FOP official Brian Steel said, per WTTG.
“This is a 14-year-old who was murdered, raped, had her hands cut off, and her throat almost cut off.”
On the same day her body was found, her father, Darnell Jones, had an arrest warrant issued against him for child abduction. He now faces charges of murder, felonious assault, and third-degree felony abduction.
On Tuesday, Columbus police said there was a SWAT standoff involving Jones, who was shot but is expected to survive. No officers were injured.
For the past five years, Latigue had been living with her grandmother, who reported her missing the day after finding their house disturbed on March 18.
Jones told WTVG last week that he last saw Latigue on Sunday, March 16, after she called and said she was afraid to be home alone. However, police said Jones provided inconsistent accounts of his correspondence with his daughter or her whereabouts.
“He dropped her off at my mother’s house at 10 o’clock Monday night, and around 11:30 she called him and said that she thought that someone was trying to break into the house,” Latigue’s mother, who lives in Cleveland, told The Toledo Blade. “He said he came back. He stayed with her until she said that she felt OK. He had to go back home because he has a newborn, and he left early Tuesday morning.”
As of Tuesday, a motive has not been disclosed.
This story is developing…
[Feature Photo: Shutterstock]
