Bones Likely Missing Ariz. Toddler

Police suspect murder
By Mary Papenfuss,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 11, 2010 1:21 AM CDT
Bones Likely Missing Ariz. Toddler
Sylar Newton, 2, was reported missing last month from an Arizona campground.   (AP Photo/Yavapai County Sheriff's Office)

Skeletal remains discovered at the bottom of a wash are likely the bones of a toddler reported missing from an Arizona campground and believed murdered, according to law enforcement authorities. Sylar Newton, 2, was wearing only a diaper when he vanished in the middle of the night from a family tent near Flagstaff, his custodial mom told police last month. The little boy came from a troubled home, reports the Arizona Republic.

Sylar's biological mom, who struggles with mental problems and drug abuse, had turned him over to Christina Priem, the sister of a friend, because she feared she couldn't care for him—but no adoption papers had been filed, police said. Investigators haven't yet named any suspects in Sylar's death, reports AP. "It's going to take time to sort all of this out," said a Yavapai County sheriff's spokesman. Another 2-year-old boy in a diaper and shirt was found dead in a mine pit last month in the same county, but police don't believe the cases are related. Emmett Trapp apparently wandered away from home while his mother was napping.
(More Sylar Newton stories.)

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