Recent documents in the case of a 3-year-old Kansas boy found dead earlier this year indicates he had signs of severe abuse before he died.
FOX News reports that Evan Brewer, who was found dead inside a makeshift concrete slab at his mother’s rented Wichita home, apparently suffered physical and emotional abuse prior to his death. According to probable cause affidavits, 12 pages each, videos and photos taken with a portable camera showed the young boy being hit with a belt by his mother if he dared move while in bed.
Further, the Wichita Police Department obtained photos and videos of Evan that showed him “surrounded by concrete walls, his hands bound behind his back and wearing a metal-buckle belt around his neck,” according to the Wichita Eagle. Another video showed the boy “standing on a piece of cardboard on top of wooden pallets on a concrete floor.”
Landlord Dwayne Haukap recalled he almost overlooked the clues himself. Then, while cleaning out the laundry room of his rental home on 2037 South Vine on September 3, he noticed an area covered in concrete and tools. As he lifted the carpeted area to clean, he saw a fresh slab of concrete with a makeshift structure. Haukap, experienced in construction work, thought it was an odd place for someone to place the structure.
The landlord said the structure measured a little over two feet wide and stood around 20 inches tall. The poured concrete was made to look like a workbench turned upside down. Haukap guessed that around “1,000 to 1,200 pounds of concrete” had been poured.
“And that made no sense to me,” Haukap said, indicating that he thought it strange for someone to set up that type of structure in the laundry room.
Haukap said that despite rollers on the bottom of the structure, it was too heavy to move. Haukap had seen Evan in the home before and knew the boy was considered missing, and immediately became suspicious that someone buried the 3-year-old inside the cement structure.
He also knew that people suspected the child’s mother, Miranda Miller, of harming the boy. He indicated that he rented the property to Miller only, and that her boyfriend, Stephen Bodine, who lived with her in the home, wasn’t on the lease.
Bodine and Miller were arrested days before the little boy was found, but not for his disappearance. Authorities arrested Bodine on suspicion of of aggravated assault and aggravated interference with parental custody, after he allegedly threatened to physically harm Evan’s father and stepmother when they stopped at the rental home looking for the boy. Miller was arrested on suspicion of aggravated interference with parental custody.
Later, after an autopsy confirmed the little boy was indeed Evan, charges for both suspects were upgraded to murder.
“Bodine said the boy went to sleep and didn’t wake up,” the affidavits read. “Bodine acknowledged that he was the one who put the kid in the concrete in the laundry room.”
One of the affidavits read that an inmate in the same jail as Bodine indicated that Bodine told him Evan stopped eating while his mother slept all day, leaving the boy with no adult to properly look after him.
“Bodine told (the inmate) that Miranda slept all day and the kid had no adult supervision. Bodine told (the inmate) that he got rid of all the evidence and disposed of it for her.”
Although Bodine is reportedly blaming Miller for Evan’s death, the affidavits read that he was an alleged drug user who “hated kids” and allowed other people to molest one of his young daughters for crack cocaine.
By the time authorities found Evan, his body was so decomposed that an autopsy couldn’t determine an official cause of death. Both suspects remain behind bars on charges of first-degree murder. If convicted, they face life in prison.
Additional Reading
Landlord finds toddler boy’s remains sealed into cement structure
Court docs reveal mother previously abused toddler boy found dead, sealed in concrete
[Feature Photo: Evan Brewer/Family Handout]
