MONUMENT, Colo.—Residents in this bedroom community north of Colorado Springs fear the body of a young girl found in the crawl space of a vacant home belongs to the same quiet and sweet child who once rode her bike and played with neighborhood children.
While residents wait for investigators to determine the dead girl’s identity, authorities have launched a search for the house’s former renters.
Hanif Sims and Monique Lynch, both 29, arrived at a Los Angeles homeless shelter in March 2009 after moving from the house. Sims’ daughter, Genesis, was not with the couple even though she had been in their care in Monument.
The girl’s biological mother, Jopetia Garretson, of Newark, N.J., told the Colorado Springs Gazette that Sims had custody and thought her daughter was in Colorado.
Authorities haven’t officially said the couple are suspects, but they have questions about the status of their children and their time living in Colorado.
“At first, I was sad. Then I got mad,” said Lillian Colton, who lives next door to the house. “You’re supposed to take care of your kids, fight for your kids. You’re not supposed to leave them.”
Investigators have taken DNA samples to help identify the body found by renovators May 14 and were looking for Sims and Lynch. No missing persons report has been filed for Genesis.
“The department is not looking for her,” El Paso County sheriff’s spokeswoman Lt. Lari Sevene said Friday of Genesis. “We’re looking for the parents.”
The couple showed up at the Union Rescue Mission’s homeless shelter in Los Angeles’ Skid Row with only their 12-year-old son, Devon, said Andy Bales, who runs the shelter. Lynch gave birth to a son in April 2009, about a month after arriving at the shelter, Bales said.
“I had nowhere to go, no family, no nothing,” Lynch said in a video that Bales said was recorded for the shelter and posted on YouTube in October. “My life right now is unbearable every day. There’s no day I can genuinely laugh or be happy that my (new) son is here.”
Bales said the family was memorable, describing Sims and Lynch as outgoing and friendly. Sims stood at about 6-foot-5, Lynch at about 6 feet, and Devon, who turned 13 while living at the shelter, was about 6-foot tall and weighed about 200 pounds.
“I always teased him that I would be his agent,” Bales said of Devon’s potential sports career.
When Bales was threatened by somebody at the shelter, Sims stepped up and offered to “watch my back,” Bales said. But sometime in the fall, Bales said Sims was barred from the shelter for what Bales described as a “tussle” between Sims and Lynch.
“We were concerned about that,” Bales said, adding that police were notified. Los Angeles police said Sims was not arrested.
Bales said the couple moved out of the shelter in December and into a subsidized apartment. The couple later disappeared, leaving Devon and the now 1-year-old boy with relatives.
Both are wanted on unrelated warrants out of New Jersey. Lynch for a probation violation and Sims for an alleged weapons violation, El Paso County sheriff’s officials said. Investigators have traveled to New Jersey and California to interview family, friends and people at homeless shelters but haven’t said whether they’ve been able to account for Genesis.
Repeated attempts by The Associated Press to reach Garretson by phone and at an address listed for her in Orange, N.J. were unsuccessful. Messages left for Sims’ and Lynch’s family members were not immediately returned.
In Monument, a memorial of teddy bears, stuffed animals, candles, balloons and an angel figurine were left on the doorstep of the house where a child’s body was found. Outside, children played in the street and rode their bicycles and skateboards in a small subdivision near town hall and the police station.
One group of children who used to play with Genesis was selling lemonade for 25-cents a cup.
“They had a son and daughter when they lived here,” said Gabrielle Bearsheart, who lives across the street from the couple, said Genesis was a sweet girl who would smile at other children while waiting for a school bus on a corner. She would sometimes ride her bicycle and played in a backyard swing set in Bearsheart’s yard, he said.
“When mom said, ‘Come home,’ she took off,” Bearsheart said. “I thought that was strange. Mine would argue and ask for more time.”
