A mother in Ohio has been charged with 16 counts, including murder and abandonment, in the death of her 6-year-old son, who was dumped into the Ohio River by police and has not yet been found.
Butler County prosecutors charged Brittany Gosney, 29, on Friday with one count of murder, involuntary manslaughter and testifying with evidence, endangering five children, three counts of kidnapping and kidnapping and two counts of aggravated assault of a corpse. .
Her boyfriend, James Hamilton, 42, was also charged with three counts of kidnapping, kidnapping, threatening children, with testimony and serious abuse of a corpse.
James Hutchinson, 6, died while his mother allegedly tried to abandon him and his two siblings on February 26 at Rush Run Park in Preble County, Ohio, police said.
Hutchinson held the car while Gosney was allegedly driven away and towed, according to court documents obtained by Cincinnati ABC subsidiary WCPO. Hamilton allegedly put Gosney under pressure to drop the children, according to a report from the Sheriff’s Office of Preble County obtained by WCPO.
Gosney allegedly returned his body with the two other children, unharmed, to their hometown of Middletown, Ohio, police said. Then the next night, she and Hamilton drove at least an hour away to Lawrenceburg, Indiana, to allegedly dump the body into the Ohio River, police said.
Hutchinson’s body has yet to be repaired. Evil conditions on the river hampered the search effort, which is expected to resume Sunday, reports The Associated Press.
Police said they would not know the full circumstances of Hutchinson’s death until they could receive an autopsy report.
Gosney’s two surviving children, a boy and a second-grade girl, were removed from the home and placed in foster care, police said.
In court records, no lawyer for Gosney or Hamilton is listed.
Gosney and Hamilton first reported Hutchinson missing to police in Middletown on Feb. 28, Chief David Birk said during a police briefing earlier this week.
According to a police warning, the six-year-old was last seen wearing a red shirt with blue and red Batman pajamas on. Volunteers helped with search efforts. Later that day, police issued an update that Hutchinson had been killed.
The case was “unusual” from the start, Birk said, noting that Gosney and Hamilton came to the police a day after they allegedly said he had gone missing.
“When they came to the police station to report a missing child who had been gone for more than 12 hours or something like that, it was weird from the beginning,” Birk said.
There were also inconsistencies between Gosney and Hamilton after they allegedly saw Hutchinson last, he said.
“The whole situation was just red flags,” the principal said.
During the investigation, Gosney allegedly admitted that he killed Hutchinson and that they “got rid of him” in the Ohio River, Birk said.
“The mother is not showing much remorse at the moment,” the principal said Monday.
Police initially charged Gosney with murder, assault of a corpse and tampered with evidence, and Hamilton with assault of a corpse and tampered with evidence.
According to Birk, Gosney has a fourth child who was placed in foster care before this incident and adopted. He noted that the family had been in contact with child and family services in the past.
The killings shocked the Middletown community, which held a memorial service for Hutchinson on Tuesday, and set up a memorial fund to support his two siblings.
Marlon Styles, superintendent of Hutchinson’s Middletown school district, remembered the first pupil as a ‘fun kid’ who would run to the front of the school building with a huge smile on his face.
“It was James daily,” Styles said during the briefing Monday.
Hutchinson’s father told WCPO that he ‘provides everyone with joy’.
“He always loved giving people and everything hugs,” Lewis Hutchinson told the station. “He was a wonderful child.”