A Napa, California mother and her boyfriend have been taken into police custody following the suspicious death of her three-year-old daughter. Police were searching for the couple for questioning about the child’s death since yesterday afternoon when officers reportedly responded to calls to perform a welfare check at the family’s residence and discovered the toddler unresponsive in her bed.

23-year-old Sara Kreuger and her boyfriend, 26-year-old Scott Warner were arrested in El Cerrito, California at a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) station. BART officers, who had apparently been told to keep an eye out for the couple, detained them until police arrived to take them into custody and escort them back to Napa for questioning about the suspicious death. The arrest reportedly occurred without incident. Prior to their capture, Kreuger and Warner had last been seen leaving the apartment that Kreuger shared with her daughter on Saturday morning carrying luggage. A tip from an anonymous citizen is said to have been key to the couple’s capture.

The name of Kreuger’s deceased three-year-old daughter has not yet been released by authorities. It has been reported that her death is being investigated as a homicide and that she appears to have been the victim of blunt force trauma and a sexual assault. No possible motive for the tragic crime has yet been made public.

The manager of the apartment complex where the little girl was found dead reported that she had often seen the toddler around the complex riding her tricycle and that she appeared to be well cared for on those occasions.

The investigation into the death of the three-year-old girl is ongoing at this time and Napa police request that anyone with any additional information about the apparent crime contact them immediately.

Kreuger isn’t the first mother to be suspected in connection with the death of her child in the state of California in recent months. Last September a 42-year-old mother, Marilyn Edge, was charged with murder in connection with the deaths of her two children, Jaleen, age 13 and Faith age 10, at a Santa Ana Hampton Inn hotel. It is believed that she poisoned the children. Their bodies were discovered by security staff doing a safety check following the mother’s attempted suicide.

The mother first attempted to kill herself by crashing her car at a local Home Depot store. She reportedly had a propane tank in the car with her and hoped that it would ignite and explode, killing her in the process. Police reportedly found her in her crashed car with a cord around her neck, attempting to strangle herself. She even requested that she be given the death penalty at her arraignment on the murder charges.

In the Edge case, it was an ongoing and ugly custody battle that seemed to spur the mother’s alleged behavior. Edge reportedly fled to California from Georgia following a ruling by a judge that she would have to turn custody of the two children over to their father. The father, Mark Edge, reported that he was not surprised that his ex-wife fled with the children but the thought that she might take their lives was beyond his expectations.

As police questioning of Sara Kreuger, the California mother now in custody following the suspicious death of her daughter, continues, perhaps more will be learned about just how and why this latest tragedy came to be as well.

By Michele Wessel

Sources:

CBS

Seattle PI

Times-Herald

CNN

CNN

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