Arlington police have a suspect in custody in the slaying of a 19-month-old girl on Friday.

Police say Joshua Markus Beard, 20, hit his girlfriend’s child and stomped on her in a house in the 2200 block of Polo Club Court that they lived in together, according to the evidentiary search warrant.

On Sunday, Beard’s aunt called police to report a missing child. She had gone to an Arlington hotel in the 1900 block of West Pleasant Ridge Road near Interstate 20 to check on Beard’s girlfriend, Alexis Botello. Beard, who was booked into the Arlington jail on Saturday on unrelated charges, said he had been unable to reach Botello.

From the onset, police believed that the child was not missing and suspected foul play, said Arlington police Sgt. Jeff Houston.

When police arrived, Botello, 17, said she hadn’t seen Tylea for two days, but eventually told police that Beard “didn’t mean to do it,” and said he told her not to say a word, according to police documents.

Botello said she couldn’t believe her child, Tylea Moore, was gone.

When police spoke with Botello she said she and Beard were fighting because Beard was pushing and yelling at Tylea. She told him to stop, saying that Tylea was just a baby and didn’t understand. Eventually, Beard went to sleep and Botello put Tylea to bed, but she told police when she went to check on the toddler in the morning, Tylea “looked awful” and had bruises on her ribs, chest, arms, legs and tops of her feet, according to police documents.

Tylea also had bite marks all over her and two cuts on her mouth, Botello said. She described Beard hitting the toddler over and over again and said he threw Tylea on the bed so hard that she bounced off and landed on the ground at which point he began stomping on her stomach until she started throwing up green stuff, according to police documents. She said they both tried CPR on the toddler but she wouldn’t breathe.

Botello told police they put the toddler in the trunk of the car, picked up gloves and shovels from Wal-Mart, and buried her in a hole they dug near a bridge in Springtown, Parker County.