Amber-Leah Valentine and Jon Imes, Arizona parents charged with felony abandonment and concealment of a dead body after hiding teen son’s body behind wall after previously claiming the 16 year old ran away amid allegations of child abuse. Turn around follows one of the other children suffering abuse at the hands of a roommate at the residence.
Rampant child abuse? An Arizona couple allegedly hid the dead body of their 16-year-old son behind a stone wall despite previously having told police the teen ran away.
Amber-Leah Valentine and Jon Imes, both 41, reported their son missing on Feb. 25, telling deputies from the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office that they had last seen the teenager around 10 a.m. Feb. 24.
Come Feb. 28, an un-identified male body was located in at Anson Smith and Indian Canyon Road in Kingman, close to the parents’ residence. The body was found wrapped in a blanket behind a stone wall at a well traveled location.
At the time authorities were unclear as to how the body came to end up behind the wall.
The Mohave County Medical Examiner’s Office performed an autopsy on the boy on Saturday. The cause and manner of the teen’s death had yet to be revealed.
Rampant child abuse?
A break in the case came on March 2, after Valentine called and told police one of her other children, a 14-year-old girl, was being ‘held captive’ by Valentine’s two roommates and had just been freed, authorities said.
Valentine and her daughter were taken to a local hospital, where Valentine ‘indicated’ that she and Imes, her husband, ‘had disposed of their 16-year-old son’s body,’ days earlier the sheriff’s office said.
‘She admitted that she lied to Deputies when they reported him as a runaway and acknowledged that he was already deceased at the time of the report,’ sheriff’s officials further alleged. ‘During questioning, Jon Imes admitted to disposing of his son’s body and lying to Deputies about him running away.’
The un-identified body located in Kingman was identified as the couple’s deceased son.
‘It’s a very traveled location, so for them to put the body there, it was very strange,’ a sheriff’s office official told KPHO-TV of the allegations.
Authorities said they executed a search warrant at the parents’ home in the 2300 block of Packard Avenue.
Investigators interviewed the teenage girl, who said one of her parents’ roommates, Richard Pounds, had shot her in the eye with a BB gun, police said.
Mohave County Sheriff’s Office
Awaiting autopsy results
She gave other examples of some of the abuse she had allegedly endured at home, prompting the Arizona Department of Child Safety to step in.
Deputies charged Valentine and Imes on March 2 with felony abandonment/concealment of a dead body after it was determined they had placed the boy’s body behind the stone wall.
Pounds was charged that same day with child abuse and aggravated assault.
All three adults remained behind bars as of Thursday morning, records show.
A second roommate was questioned, but released pending further investigation.
More charges are expected to be filed after final autopsy results determine the teen’s cause of death, authorities said.
