The mother of a 9-year-old girl, whose body was found inside a duffel bag near a Los Angeles-area hiking trail, is expected to be charged with her murder, police said.
Taquesta Graham, who was arrested earlier this month in Texas on an unrelated charge and extradited back to California, was booked on Monday in connection to the murder of her daughter, Trinity Love Jones, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
Trinity’s body was discovered in a black rolling duffel bag on March 5 by maintenance workers in Hacienda Heights, California, about 20 miles east of downtown Los Angeles.
The sheriff’s department said it appeared as though the duffel bag was pushed down an embankment from Hacienda Boulevard. Her death has been ruled a homicide, but authorities have not said exactly how Trinity was killed.
Graham, 28, and her boyfriend, Emiel Lamar Hunt, were stopped on March 8 at a border patrol checkpoint in Hudspeth County, Texas. Graham was arrested for an unrelated parole violation and extradited back to California on Thursday.
She is being held at a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s station in Norwalk on $2 million bail and is expected to be arraigned on the murder charge Wednesday, according to the sheriff’s department and jail records.
Hunt, 38, was initially released by authorities, but arrested again on March 9 in San Diego, California, after detectives learned that he and Graham were involved in Trinity’s death. Hunt is being held at the Norwalk Sheriff’s Station on a murder charge. His bail was also set at $2 million.
Antonio Jones, who identified himself to NBC Los Angeles as Trinity’s father, described the little girl as someone who was “full of character, full of love, full of joy.”
“We just want answers,” he said. “We want justice.”
