Danielle Dauphinais charged with murder of Elijah Lewis New Hampshire 5 year old boy. Autopsy revealed violence and neglect and mother previously texted friend saying she wanted the boy gone.
The mother of a missing 5-year-old New Hampshire boy who was found dead in a wooded area in Massachusetts has been charged with his murder, prosecutors announced on Monday.
Danielle Dauphinais was indicted by a grand jury Friday on two murder charges ‘for purposely causing the death’ of her son Elijah Lewis, whose body was discovered in October two weeks after he was reported missing, according to the New Hampshire Department of Justice.
An autopsy revealed Elijah had fentanyl in his system and succumbed to ‘violence and neglect,’ authorities said, including ‘facial and scalp injuries, malnourishment and pressure ulcers.’
The 35-year-old mother and her boyfriend, Joseph Stapf, 30, were arrested in NYC on Oct. 18 on charges of witness tampering and child endangerment after they allegedly asked others to lie about Elijah’s whereabouts because they knew child protection workers were searching for him.
Dauphinais along with first degree murder was indicted on one count of second-degree murder for causing Lewis’s death recklessly with extreme indifference to the value of human life, and three counts of tampering with witnesses, authorities said.
I want him gone
She will continue to be held without bail with a court hearing to be set for a later date.
Stapf faces child endangerment and witness protection charges he’s currently being held without bail.
According to a Boston Globe report published about one month after Dauphinais and Stapf were arrested in October, Dauphinais had texted an acquaintance that she wanted Elijah ‘gone’ and compared him to serial killers such as Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer.
‘It’s so sad but I have no connection with this child,’ Dauphinais reportedly texted Erika Wolfe in June of 2021. ‘His father took him at the age of one and never returned him until last may 2020. He’s been getting worse and worse. I want him gone. I can’t handle it anymore.’
