COLUMBUS, Ohio, Dec. 31 (UPI) -- A toddler whose mother said she left him on a stranger's porch in Columbus, Ohio, was found dead in a creek Wednesday.
Divers discovered the body, later identified as Cameron Beckford, 14 months, in Big Walnut Creek. The creek is near the house where Dainesha Stevens, 24, claimed she left her son.
Stevens, 24, is in the Franklin County Jail in lieu of $150,0000 bail. She has been charged with child endangerment and tampering with evidence.
In court documents, investigators said that Stevens allowed her son to be spanked so brutally the beating took skin off his buttocks and that she allowed the boy's body to be moved to hide evidence of a homicide. The documents do not identify anyone as the person who brutalized Cameron.
Stevens traveled to Ohio from her home in Frederick, Md.,with her 6-year-old daughter and Cameron. On Monday, she reported the girl missing but did not mention her son.
The girl, now in the custody of child welfare officials, was found in the care of a friend of Stevens.
Stevens traveled to Ohio in mid-December, telling her children's father she was taking them to visit relatives. The father called Frederick police Sunday to say he was worried about his children and did not know where Stevens was staying.
