The mother and stepfather of a four-year-old girl who had not been seen for more than a year have been arrested for her murder days after the child was found dead in woodland in Kentucky.
Catherine Abigail McKinney, 21, and Dakota Hugh Hill, 26, were charged with murder and abuse of a corpse over the disappearance and death of Serenity McKinney.
Kentucky State Police said that Serenity’s remains were discovered on Friday afternoon in a wooded area in West Point near the state border with Indiana.
It is not yet clear when the little girl died or how long her body was left in the woodland. It is also unclear what led investigators to the scene.
An autopsy was being carried out on Monday to determine her cause and manner of death.
Serenity was last seen alive back in December 2020, with her family members telling investigators they had had no contact with the four-year-old for months.
The little girl’s aunt told WLKY she saw the four-year-old around the holiday season and spoke to her by phone a few months later, before Serenity’s mother cut off all contact with their extended family.
“We last saw her Christmas of 2020 at the family Christmas. We spoke to her on the phone Father’s Day week in June of 2021, but that was the last contact," said Ms McKinney’s stepmother Aundria Wainscott.
Serenity’s family said they contacted child protective services and filed a missing persons report on 31 January.
“It just got to the point where we couldn’t wait no longer, we needed to know that she was okay,” said Ms Wainscott.
Multiple law enforcement agencies got involved in the search for the missing child, before her body was tragically discovered last week.
Serenity’s mother and her boyfriend were first arrested in connection to Serenity’s disappearance on 6 February.
Ms McKinney and Mr Hill were taken into custody hundreds of miles away in Colby, Kansas, on charges of custodial interference.
It is not clear why they were in Kansas at the time of their arrests.
The Shelby County Sheriff’s Office said that Ms McKinney was refusing to cooperate with investigators at that time.
Following the discovery of Serenity’s body, the couple was charged with murder.
Police said they were being extradited back to Kentucky to face the new charges.
A GoFundMe has been set up to help Serenity’s family pay for her funeral expenses.
