Jeffery Clifton fatally beat his 2-year-old son, Malik Drummond, three days before reporting the child missing and tried to come up with a plan to frame the toddler's mother, Clifton's former girlfriend told Searcy police.
The account of Malik's final day of life and of Clifton's purported efforts to dispose of the body appear in Searcy police affidavits released Thursday -- the same day police arrested Lesley Sue Marcotte, 27, of Springdale on a felony charge of hindering apprehension or prosecution in the year-old case.
On Wednesday, police announced they had arrested Clifton, 43, of Searcy on charges of capital murder and abuse of a corpse. Hours later, police disclosed they had found skeletal remains believed to be those of Malik in rural Jackson County.
Searcy police Sgt. Steve Hernandez said Clifton led police to the location of those remains Tuesday night.
DNA obtained from Malik's mother, Tanya Drummond, will be used to help identify the remains found in a vacant lot in the small town of Auvergne. The site is roughly a 40-mile trip from the Searcy home Clifton shared with Marcotte at the time of the crime in November 2014, authorities said.
Prosecuting Attorney Rebecca Reed McCoy said Thursday that the medical examiner's office would be studying the "partial skeletal remains" for "possible identification and to see if there were any other obvious injuries," such as those a knife would have created.
Clifton's Little Rock attorney, Ron Davis, said Thursday that his client will plead innocent.
"What meets the eye ... is not always what the facts are," Davis said. "Knowledge of something does not necessarily mean you're guilty of committing the offense."
McCoy said Malik's mother -- Tanya Drummond -- is not a suspect "at this time."
McCoy said that to her knowledge, Marcotte does not have an attorney. Marcotte is free on her own recognizance because of unspecified medical reasons, police said.
In an affidavit filed against Clifton, Searcy police detective Terri Lee wrote that she and FBI Special Agent Charles Watkins interviewed Witness 1 -- Marcotte -- on Nov. 23, exactly one year from the date that Marcotte and Clifton first told police that Malik was missing.
In the new interview, Marcotte told police that Clifton had fatally beaten the child on Thursday, Nov. 20, 2014, but kept the body hidden until early Sunday, Nov. 23, 2014, when she said he disposed of it "but did not tell [her] where or how."
Malik, a curly-haired boy with bright eyes and a sweet smile in his pictures, was 3 feet tall and weighed about 40 pounds. Clifton, a former basketball star at Arkansas State University, is 6 feet 7 inches tall.
Marcotte told police that Clifton went to work that Friday with the boy's body in the back seat of his pickup, an affidavit says.
The document also says the couple "staged" events to report Malik missing.
"Malik's father told Marcotte to text him about Malik [that Sunday]; to create the impression Malik was still alive that weekend," the affidavit against Marcotte says.
The affidavit against Clifton refers to Marcotte only as Witness 1, but the less-detailed affidavit filed against her makes it clear Witness 1 is Marcotte.
According to Marcotte's account, "Clifton got mad" at Malik for not eating dinner and took the child into a bedroom "to discipline him," Lee wrote. Malik returned and started eating.
While Marcotte gave other children in the household a bath, Malik "drank all of another child's drink so Clifton got mad at him again" and returned to the bedroom with him, police wrote.
"[Marcotte] said when Clifton brought Malik back out, Malik did not act or look okay," one of the affidavits says. She "begged Clifton to take Malik to the hospital, but he would not ... because of the extensive bruising on Malik's body."
She told police that Clifton "beat Malik and his twin sister on several occasions," the affidavit says.
"[Marcotte] said Clifton put Malik in the bathtub to see how the water would affect him," it adds. Later in bed with her and Clifton, "Malik's legs were cold and his belly was swelling. [She] said Malik started making a choking sound and [she] tried CPR."
Clifton then wrapped the child in a purple robe and took him outside, Marcotte told police.
"[She] said Clifton came back in later and said it was too late," the affidavit adds.
That same day, the two adults tried to come up with a plan, police wrote in the document.
Clifton first tried to come up with a way to implicate Malik's mother in his disappearance, the affidavit says. Later, the came up with the plan they put into effect -- telling police that Malik walked out of the house while Clifton was sleeping and Marcotte was in the bathtub with another child, the affidavit says.
Marcotte told police that Clifton was awake all weekend and said he left home about 3 a.m. that Sunday in a sport utility vehicle borrowed from his brother to dispose of Malik's body, the affidavit says.
She said Clifton left his phone at the house because "'he knew it had GPS on it,'" she told police. He returned home about 6:30 a.m., she added.
A cadaver dog alerted police to that vehicle's interior last year, the affidavit says.
According to the affidavit, a friend of Clifton identified only as Witness 4 visited the house that Thursday and saw all of the children, including Malik. That same friend returned that Saturday to bring some toys to the children and noticed Malik was not there, the affidavit relates.
Police said another person, identified only as Witness 3, reported seeing Malik in a playpen in the home with bruises on his face a few months before the child vanished.
Marcotte recalled that person noticing the bruises and saying, "'He don't need to do that to the boy,'" the affidavit relates.
In the Marcotte affidavit, the detective wrote, "Malik's father said he would take Marcotte down with him if Marcotte told anyone what actually happened."
On Nov. 24 and 25 of this year, Marcotte recorded two conversations she had with Clifton, the Clifton affidavit says.
In the first conversation, it says she asked him, "What if they find his body?"
Clifton reportedly replied, "We already talked about this. This is not the time to talk about this. We need to talk face-to-face."
The next day, the two had an in-person, recorded conversation. She began talking about Malik.
According to the affidavit, Clifton said, "they can't come at you with nothin'. The only person that [would] know is me."
The affidavit said he added, "'All you got to remember is to keep saying you don't know ... I don't care what they say whatever they is saying, they don't have anything ... I don't care what they say, they don't have s***. You know this. So I don't care what they tell you they say it is. 'No I didn't. No I didn't.'"
He reportedly added, "'That's why I don't want to say nothing' about it. Got me spooked.'"
Both defendants are set to be arraigned in White County on Jan. 5 at 9 a.m.
State Desk on 12/04/2015