At a news conference on Nov. 21, Glendale Police Sgt. Brent Coombs said authorities do not expect to find Jhessye Shockley alive. He also said the child’s mother, Jerice Hunter, is the “No. 1 focus” in the investigation into the girl’s disappearance.
In recent days, the 13-year-old sister of the missing 5-year-old Arizona girl began talking to her foster mother about conditions and events in the family’s home prior to her sister’s disappearance. She told police their mother instructed her to lie about Jhessye’s disappearance, and said the last time she saw her little sister alive was Sept. 12, not the Oct. 11 date their mother is reporting.
According to the teen, an incident occurred in the family’s home several weeks ago in which Hunter became angry when she returned home to find Jhessye dressed in a long T-shirt while watching TV with a neighbor boy. A document presented to the court includes details revealed by the older sister, indicating that Hunter was heard calling Jhessye a “ho” before taking her into a bedroom where the teenager said she heard her little sister screaming and crying. She told police that Hunter kept Jhessye in a bedroom closet without food or water, and that she had seen the girl in the closet with black eyes and bruises and cuts to her face and body.
Court documents included a report that read: “(She) reported that Jhessye’s hair had been pulled out and described Jhessye as not looking alive and that she looked like a zombie. (She) said that the closet where Jhessye had been looked like a grave and smelled like dead people.”
The teen reportedly said that Hunter placed incense in a container to conceal the odor. She also said that a few days before Jhessye was reported missing, her mother spent the entire day cleaning the apartment and cleaning her shoes from the closet with soap and bleach. Police confirmed that they found a receipt that showed Hunter bought food and a bottle of bleach two days before she reported her daughter missing.
Jerice Hunter maintains her innocence, but is being held on a $100,000 bond because of her past history of child abuse and the seriousness of the charge against her. Jhessye’s grandmother, Shirley Johnson, had accused local police and the media of failing to focus enough attention on her granddaughter’s story because of Hunter’s past conviction on child abuse charges. Johnson said weeks ago that she believed her daughter had “changed,” and had nothing to do with Jhessye’s disappearance.
Johnson has yet to comment on the new developments in the case, but her original concern that Jhessye’s case would not receive the attention it deserved takes on new meaning now that the child’s mother is suspected in her disappearance. This heartbreaking story has sad and eerie similarities to the tragic Caylee Anthony case —though little Jhessye has never received the round-the-clock news coverage or national interest Caylee’s disappearance generated. –kathleen cross
