Mother arrested after Syracuse Police find body of missing child in grave

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — A mother has been charged with manslaughter after Syracuse Police found the body of her missing 5-year-old daughter buried in a shallow grave.

Police found the body of Nefertiti Harris in a baseball field on Tuesday after a two-day, multi-agency search, according to our Syracuse NBC affiliate. According to court documents, her 29-year-old mother, Latasha Mott, confessed to beating her child with a belt in the shower in an apartment and hiding her child’s body.

Police say Nefertiti had actually been missing for months and that her mother had lied about her daughter’s whereabouts. The Syracuse City School District said that Mott falsely claimed that she transferred her daughter to a school in Georgia.

Mott is also charged with disposal of a corpse. Police are still investigating.