A toddler whose disappearance a year ago led to a murder charge against his father Wednesday died in a beating days before he was first reported missing, according to affidavits released by police Thursday.
Police released the documents after they arrested Lesley Sue Marcotte, the girlfriend of Malik Drummond's father, Jeffrey Clifton, on a charge of hindering an arrest or prosecution.
Marcotte, 27, said Clifton, 43, beat the 2-year-old Nov. 20, 2014, and kept the body hidden for three days before disposing of it and concocting a story about how the child walked away from the couple's house in Searcy, according to the affidavits.
Clifton was arrested late Tuesday night and charged with capital murder and abusing a corpse. Police on Wednesday said they discovered remains believed to be Malik's in a vacant lot in Jackson County.
According to the affidavits, Marcotte described pleading with Clifton to take Malik's bruised and swelling body to the hospital after Clifton beat the boy twice, once for refusing to eat and later for drinking another child's drink after dinner.
Clifton beat Malik and his twin sister on several occasions, Marcotte told police, and even pointed out to police a bruise in a photograph of Malik that had been printed on missing posters, according to the reports.
After a police and volunteer search in the days after Malik was reported missing yielded no clues, authorities began a criminal investigation, according to the affidavits.
"Numerous inconsistencies emerged regarding the initial report of Malik's disappearance," Searcy police detective Terri Lee wrote in the affidavit.
Marcotte was interviewed Nov. 23 by FBI agents in Springdale, according to the affidavit.
Marcotte allowed police to record two conversations she had with Clifton on Nov. 24 and 25 of this year, which led police to call Clifton in for questioning Tuesday.
In announcing Marcotte's arrest Thursday, police did not give an update about the identification of the remains recovered Wednesday.
Hernandez said it's unlikely that Malik would have dental or other medical records on file that police can use to confirm the identity, so a DNA comparison will probably be necessary.
Kermit Channell, the director of the Arkansas State Crime Lab, said investigators will have to determine how to best identify the set of remains.
If investigators have only skeletal DNA to work with, Channell said identification will have to be outsourced and could take several weeks or a month.
Hernandez said the remains appeared to have been at the location since around the time the boy was reported missing.
Until the body is officially identified as Malik, an Amber Alert for the child will remain active, Hernandez said.
A $20,000 reward offered by the FBI for information leading to a suspect is unlikely to be given, Hernandez said.
