Car involved in missing 4-year-old Maleah Davis case has been found

Houston Police Homicide detectives investigate the scene where the vehicle belonging to Maleah Davis' family was found at a parking lot on the 5400 block of Highway 6 Thursday, May 9, 2019, in Missouri City, Texas. less Houston Police Homicide detectives investigate the scene where the vehicle belonging to Maleah Davis' family was found at a parking lot on the 5400 block of Highway 6 Thursday, May 9, 2019, in Missouri City, ... more Photo: Godofredo A. Vásquez, Staff Photographer Photo: Godofredo A. Vásquez, Staff Photographer Image 1 of / 66 Caption Close Car involved in missing 4-year-old Maleah Davis case has been found 1 / 66 Back to Gallery

Doubt continued to surround the disappearance of 4-year-old Maleah Davis as her family’s stolen car was found Thursday morning in a Missouri City parking lot and as police said they were unable to find the man who reported an alleged abduction.

The one constant is that little Maleah has not yet been found.

The elusive Nissan Altima that the child’s stepfather, Darion Vence, was believed to be driving the night of Maleah’s presumed disappearane was found by an eagle-eyed cabbie outside a shopping center in the 5400 block of Texas 6, Missouri City police Capt. Paul Poulton said. The driver knew about the search for the child and recognized the vehicle.

The paper tag license plates also matched what Houston Police Department has shared in the missing persons case, Poulton said.

The vehicle had no sign of Maleah and was towed to a police evidence lot in Houston, HPD Detective Ken Fregia said.

“The car’s clean, and I don’t mean in that somebody’s cleaned it,” Fregia said at a news conference. “The car looks normal. There’s no obvious signs of anything happening in the car.”

How the car ended up at the shopping center is uncertain. Amber Ryan, an employee at an Avis Car Rental office in the center, said the car was not there when she reported to work on Tuesday. Fefe Taylor also said she did not see any cars in that area when she arrived for her shift at Riverstone Dental around 7:30 a.m. Thursday.

The car did not appear to have anything wrong with the tires either, in contrast to Vence’s initial police report that three men jumped him in north Houston after he pulled over to check on a possible flat on his way to pick up Maleah’s mother at Bush Intercontinental Airport. Police did not know if the tires had since been changed.

Vence initially claimed that the suspects knocked him unconscious and kidnapped him and the two children with him — including Maleah, according to police. He said spent the next day blacked out and woke up Saturday night in Sugar Land with his 1-year-old son. Maleah had been taken, he said.

He could not remember what happened to him or the child since Friday night and reported her missing at Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital.

Fregia said that was the last time Vence contacted police.

“Each time we have tried to talk to him, or have him come in, we have been unsuccessful,” Fregia said.

Police issued a “be on the lookout” alert for the car Vence was driving and had hoped to find him with it, the detective said. He was asked to come in and help compile a sketch of the three men who may have taken the girl.

HPD has not publicly declared Vence a person of interest or suspect in the child’s disappearance.

“We’re not concerned that we haven’t found him,” Fregia said when asked if Vence was a person of interest.

The discovery brought Maleah’s mother, Brittany Bowens, to the parking lot. She declined to comment on the find and collapsed onto a patch of grass near the crime scene tape and screamed, “Where is she?”

As of Tuesday, Vence has apparently failed to answer “any communication attempts” by Bowens, according to court documents. The same court document reveals that Sugar Land Police Department was eyeing Vence in connection to the girl’s disappearance.

Meanwhile, Texas EquuSearch was conducting its own effort near Vence’s apartment in the 9700 block of Kirkwood Road in the Alief area. The search was cut short on Tuesday and Wednesday because of storms and flood conditions.

Another round of rough weather was a factor in ceasing search operations on Thursday, authorities said.

A review of court documents leading up to Maleah’s disappearance shows that her grandmother, Brenda Bowens, tried having the girl and her two siblings placed in her home — rather than foster care — during a lengthy Child Protective Services investigation that began last August. An emergency motion lodged Tuesday was her latest attempt.

The 1-year-old child who was with Vence the night of the alleged abduction was discharged from the hospital Sunday and placed in his paternal grandmother’s care, a CPS caseworker wrote in court documents, while the 5-year-old boy was placed in a foster home.

The caseworker wrote that she was unable to reach Vence or Brittany Bowens on Sunday to discuss their decision.

The children were previously taken into CPS custody last August after Maleah suffered an unexplained head injury that was reported as an allegation of physical abuse and neglectful supervision, records show. A sworn statement by a CPS investigator revealed that on July 29, Brittany Bowens called her mother and said Maleah had “fallen from a tall chair to a marble table” but was fine.

At the grandmother’s urging, Maleah was taken to a hospital and a laceration to her forehead was stitched. The child’s health took a turn for the worst Aug. 1, according to the statement.

“Brittany Bowens texted Brenda Bowens that something was wrong with Maleah and that her eyes were rolling back,” the document reads.

Another trip to the hospital revealed that the child had a “craniectomy to relieve pressure,” the sworn statement continued. The surgery revealed that the color of Maleah’s blood “was not normal.”

“It looked different and not ‘fresh,’” the statement said.

The record shows medical professionals doubted that a fall from a chair could have caused Maleah’s injuries, which required half her skull to be removed. The injury also caused “acute and chronic hemorrhages within the cranial vault of her head.”

Vence, whom CPS identified as Brittany Bowens’ paramour, was home at the time of Maleah’s injury but told the investigator he was in the bathroom and “did not actually see how it happened,” documents show. “He denied any previous injuries.”

Maleah was previously hospitalized July 10 after “vomiting with small amounts of blood.”

On Feb. 15, a Harris County judge ruled that the children could return home with periodic CPS visits. In April, a caseworker reported that Maleah’s mother had taken a parenting class and that CPS should be dismissed from the civil litigation. The agency intervened again only after an Amber Alert was issued Sunday morning for the missing child.

Maleah’s 5-year-old brother has since been placed into a foster home, according to court documents.

Lawyers involved with the custody dispute are unable to discuss the matter due to a gag order. The case is due back in court May 22.