Where is Maleah Davis?: Timeline of missing little girl’s disappearance

The search continues for 4-year-old Houston girl, Maleah Davis, and despite strenuous efforts by law enforcement officials and search volunteers with Texas Equusearch, the little girl still has not been found. As the timeline of Maleah’s disappearance unfolded, authorities eventually announced that they’re likely dealing with a recovery effort and that the little girl is …

The search continues for 4-year-old Houston girl, Maleah Davis, and despite strenuous efforts by law enforcement officials and search volunteers with Texas Equusearch, the little girl still has not been found.

As the timeline of Maleah’s disappearance unfolded, authorities eventually announced that they’re likely dealing with a recovery effort and that the little girl is probably deceased. Anyone with any information on Maleah is urged to contact the Houston Police Department at 713-308-3600 or Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS.

Maleah Davis
Maleah Davis [Handout]
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Timeline and Searches

April 30

Maleah’s mother, Brittany Bowens, reportedly left Texas for Massachusetts to attend a funeral. It’s still unclear the exact time Bowens left for the airport.

At around 7:45 a.m. that morning, security footage at an apartment complex off of the 9800 block of South Kirkwood Drive, captured Maleah trailing behind Bowens’ boyfriend, Derion Vence, as they walked toward their apartment.

An hour later, security footage showed Vence walking away from the apartment complex alone. Maleah was not seen again.

May 3

Vence was spotted again on the same security camera at around 1:40 p.m., leaving the apartment complex with a large black garbage bag inside a laundry basket. Authorities said that judging by his walk and the way he held the basket, whatever was in it had to have been heavy.

Security footage captured Vence leaving the apartment again at around 6:47 p.m. with his toddler son. He may have been carrying a bottle of bleach.

May 4

Vence called police from the Methodist Hospital in Sugar Land after checking in around 11 p.m. He claimed he had been in an out of consciousness since the previous night, when three Hispanic males attacked him while he stopped to check out a “popping sound” coming the from tire of the car he drove, Bowens’ 2011 Nissan Altima. Vence claimed the car was also missing.

Vence said the men beat him up and abducted him, along with his son and Maleah, but later let him and his son go.

Vence claimed he passed out and woke up on the side of road with his 1-year-old son with him. He said he walked for miles until he reached the hospital. Meanwhile, a neighbor told Click 2 Houston that she saw Vence at his apartment on the same evening he claimed he was walking to the hospital.

“I looked at him and he went back into his apartment. And I looked at him, but he didn’t have a big bruise or anything at all,” Jania Soto said.

CrimeOnline spoke with Sugar Land police spokesman Doug Adolph, who confirmed that they interviewed Vence, and noticed from the beginning he kept changing his story.

“We responded to a call from a male at the hospital. He had fresh wounds but he changed his story several times. We canvassed the area and scanned surveillance footage, and learned the crime occurred in Houston, and sent over Houston homicide investigators.”

May 5

Despite investigators noticing inconsistencies in Vence’s story, they issued an AMBER Alert for Maleah at around 8 a.m.

Houston PD said they cannot comment on why Vence didn’t use a cell phone to call for help, or if he even had a cell phone with him at all.

During a news conference, Sgt. Mark Holbrook said he knew there were “a lot of blanks in that story.”

May 6:  Texas Equusearch Steps In

Houston police called Texas Equusearch founder Tim Miller and asked for assistance in finding Maleah. Search volunteers walked through the wooded areas near Houston’s Bush Intercontinental Airport, along Eastex Freeway and Greens Road, where they utilized ATVS to search deep into the woods.

Other volunteers searched all area dumpsters in the vicinity but found nothing substantial. Regardless, Miller said they aimed to search “every single dumpster, just in case.”

 

May 8: Brazos River Search

Tim Miller used a helicopter to fly over the Brazos River, from the Gulf of Mexico across Highway 59. He didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

Brazos River
(Photo: 2019 Google Maps)

Meanwhile, searchers shifted gears to the Southwest Houston area, and began looking around the area where Maleah lived with her mother and Vence in the apartment complex off of Bissonnet and Kirkwood. According to Texas EquuSearch, the group had to suspend the search due to severe flooding in the area.

May 9: Nissan Altima Found

The search for Maleah shifted to Missouri City, Texas, after a Metro driver spotted the alleged stolen Nissan Altima in plain sight, in a parking lot off of Highway 6 and Riverstone Boulevard, and contacted authorities immediately. The car appeared clean and “normal” and had one car seat inside. The vehicle is being towed to HPD headquarters, where a crime scene analyst will process it and do a thorough investigation.

Riverstone Blvd. at Highway 6 in Missouri City, Texas (Photo: 2019 Google Maps)

May 10

Community activist, Quanell X, speaking on behalf of Bowens, claimed that Vence physically and sexually abused Maleah and even threatened Bowens when she once tried to take the little girl to the hospital. He also said Bowens “took off her engagement ring” prior to taking the flight to Massachusetts, after she allegedly caught Vence sending compromising photos to a man. Bowens supposedly refused to take Vence’s calls while she was out of state.

Authorities have not confirmed these allegations.

When asked why Bowens never came forward with the information earlier, Quanell said Bowens “did not want to believe” that Vence had anything to do with Maleah’s disappearance.

May 11

Police arrested Vence and on charges of suspicion of tampering with evidence, a human corpse. Further, the Houston police said that “blood evidence obtained from Vence’s apartment has been linked to Malea.” Using DNA from Maleahs’s toothbrush, investigators made a match to the blood found in the home.

Meanwhile, dogs picked up on human decomposition in the trunk of the Nissan Altima.

May 13

A Houston judge reduced Vence’s bond from $1 million to $45,000. As of Monday, Vence is still behind bars at the at the Harris County Jail. He was expected in court on Monday but the hearing has been postponed.

Outrage sparkes as Bowens stood outside of the courtroom with Quanell. Several people in the crowd demanded to know why she didn’t protect her daughter if she knew of previous abuse.

“You’re just as guilty as (Vence). She needs to be locked up along with him,” Tamisha Mendoza, cousin of Maleah’s biological  father, Craig Davis, said, according to CBS Houston.

Houston police spokesman Kese Smith told CrimeOnline that the department is not currently giving interviews on the case and all updates, at least for now, will come from the Houston Police Department’s Twitter page.

Anyone with information on Maleah Davis’ whereabouts is urged to contact HPD at 713-308-3600 or Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS.

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[Feature Photo: Maleah Davis/Handout]