A 19-year-old woman has been arrested for murder relating to the death of a 5-year-old boy who was in her care in upstate New York after telling police a phony abduction story, Fox News reported on Friday.
Kenneth White, had an amber alert issued for him after the 19-year-old told authorities he was kidnapped from the home in Albany. White's body was found not too long later "intentionally covered with snow" near the home where he resided with legal guardians.
Tiffany VanAlstyne was charged with second degree murder, and Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple said her story "started to not add up." VanAlstyne is the child of Kenneth's legal guardian.
Apple said the death was senseless and that the young boy was discarded like trash.
"It's simple and it's sad," he said. "This was not an abduction."
The woman originally said that two men clad in black ski masks burst into the home, pinned her to the ground and took the young boy around 1:30 a.m. Thursday and drove away in a truck.
A sheriff K-9 unit doing a search in a rural area outside Albany found the body's body early on Friday. The remains were found in a culvert across the street from where he lived in a trailer.
Kenneth's biological mother lives in another part of New York and his father resides in Massachusetts, according to police. Kenneth also has a twin sister and a 4-year-old sister, and VanAlstyne's parents have been their legal guardians since September, CBS New York reported.
"Everybody's devastated," said Lauren Tracey, a mother who lives near the family but doesn't know them. "It was a little nerve-wracking. It's basically in my backyard."
