Sophia Simmons has been charged with first-degree murder, child abuse and tampering with evidence (Picture: Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office)
A mother allegedly murdered her young daughter and disposed of the body in a dumpster on Christmas Eve.
Cops responded to a report of a body in a dumpster near a business at 31st and Grand avenues in Phoenix around 8pm on Sunday. They determined that the remains were of a ‘school-aged’ girl, according to ABC 15.
On Christmas Day, police received a tip that Sophia Simmons, 38, put a child’s body in a dumpster after possibly assaulting the victim to death.
A witness was going through a dumpster searching for firewood and came across a tote that was partly open, looked inside and reportedly saw the girl’s body, court documents state. The witness contacted police, who called a medical examiner to the scene.
The victim was believed to be five to seven years old and seemed to be injured on her torso, arms and legs, according to the documents. Her wounds were in different stages of healing and she also had scars.
Also on Christmas Day, a witness in New York reported getting a call from Simmons admitting she had ‘beaten her child and it went too far’. Simmons apparently told the witness that she left her home after beating the child and returned to find her not breathing.
Simmons stayed with the body for five days and then put it in the dumpster, states a police report.
Detectives obtained a search warrant and entered Simmons’ home by 51st Avenue and McDowell Road while she was away and founds signs of an effort to clean up a crime scene.
They used her phone records to track her near Indio, California, and on the way back to Arizona. She was apprehended near 411th Avenue and Interstate 10 near Phoenix and taken to the police headquarters.
Simmons has been charged with first-degree murder, child abuse and tampering with evidence.
The girl’s murder happened less than a year after a teenage girl allegedly killed her boyfriend’s mother and the two discarded the body in a dumpster at their apartment complex in Ohio.
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Sophia Simmons allegedly beat her ‘school-aged’ daughter to death and left the body in a dumpster in Phoenix on Christmas Eve.