The search continues for a 1-year-old Alabama boy — now presumed dead — following his disappearance in September.
Kahleb Collins was reported missing on December 9, a day after his father and 2-year-old sister were killed in a car wreck. WABM reported that investigators extensively searched the family’s property in Fayette County, and were spotted digging and sifting through ashes in the yard.
Authorities do not believe Collins was in the vehicle when his father veered off the road at 90mph and struck a tree. They now suspect Collins vanished in early September and is deceased.
Days after the deadly wreck, Collins’ grandfather, John Bailey, 50, was arrested for failing to report Kahleb Collins’ disappearance. Weeks later, Collins’ mother, Wendy Bailey, was charged with failing to report her husband for abusing Kahleb Collins in July.
READ: Bloody Tot Bound By Rope From Loft Before His Presumed Death
Authorities wrote that, on at least two instances, Wendy Bailey witnessed her son “being bound with rope, physically assaulted, and being bound by a rope from a loft with blood and bruising present.”
Kahleb Collins’ father allegedly sent Wendy Bailey photos showing their son hanging by a rope and bloody. The father reportedly wrote that he wanted to kill the toddler and he was not moving. He later texted Wendy Bailey that their son was moving.
Wendy Bailey, who was seriously injured in the December 8 wreck, was also charged with negligent homicide for her daughter’s death. Though she was a passenger, authorities determined she was negligent by failing to have her daughter restrained before the crash that killed her child.
Additionally, Wendy Bailey is charged with abusing a corpse as investigators believe her son’s body was put in a bag and stashed in a storage building. His body was eventually discarded at an unknown location, authorities suggested.
John Bailey remains jailed on a $100,000 bond, while Wendy Bailey’s bond was $1.9 million. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for February 15.
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[Feature Photo: Alabama Law Enforcement Agency]