5/14/2021 6:38 PM UPDATE: According to multiple news outlets, Ladonia Boggs was arrested this afternoon and charged with felony murder in connection with the disappearance of her son, Kyon Jones. She is scheduled to appear in court tomorrow.

Kyon’s body has still not been found.

Also, a preliminary glance at Ladonia’s previous court history reveals multiple prior arrests for domestic violence.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE:

Too many of the children I’ve covered on the blog and the podcast have been discarded like trash and reported missing.

Noah Tomlin. AJ Freund. Frankie Gonzalez. Zahra Baker. Thaddeus Sran. Nakota Kelly. Chance Peterkin. The list goes on.

Sadly, it looks like I’ll be adding another name to that list today: two-month-old Kyon Jones.

The story hit the news on Friday, May 7, 2021 when Ladonia Boggs reported her son, Kyon, missing. The Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department leapt into action, releasing information in the hopes of finding the baby: Kyon is described as a black male infant with brown hair and brown eyes who was last seen in the family’s residence in apartment 11 at 1511 Benning Road NE.

Alarmingly, Ladonia told police she last saw her son on May 5. He was reported missing two days later. 

An MPD spokesperson told reporters on May 8 that the criteria for an Amber Alert “may not have been met” in Kyon’s disappearance. 

A neighbor told the media, “I hope they find the baby; that’s all I can say. I hope they find the baby and bring it back safe… Whoever got it or found the baby, please bring it back.”

Other neighbors said investigators went door to door, asking if they had seen children’s clothing. One person said of the questions the officers asked, “I was lost for words.”

Police searched the area on Friday evening, looking for Kyon, and over the weekend, a manned police cruiser remained in the parking lot of the apartment building. 

A member of Kyon’s extended family, Quiana Walton, told Fox 5, “It’s very sad. We just hope if anybody has any information, they’ll help us bring him home to his mom. His brothers and his sisters really miss him. I’m the grandmother of one of the kids. We just want him back home.”

On Sunday evening, Henderson Long, the founder of D.C.’s Missing Voice and an activist for missing people, handed out missing flyers bearing Kyon’s face and details. He told WUSA9 of Kyon’s disappearance, “I would describe it as an urgent matter. I would describe it as a matter that needs the community’s attention. If anybody knows of the whereabouts of this two-month-old, we encourage them to dial MPD’s command information center at 727-9099 or text anonymously to 50411.

“He’s not like me and you. We can take care of ourselves, and we can ask for help. A two-month-old baby is totally dependent on their surroundings. So, given those facts, the little bit that I do know, we have to get out and have to do something and keep the community at a high level of awareness, because you never know who may know something and come forward.”

This is where the story takes an extremely sharp and decidedly weird turn. While passing out flyers, Mr. Long ran into Kyon’s mother and asked if she would do a Facebook Live video with him. He said, “We were under the impression the mom is just going to talk to me and tell me, ‘Hey, can you help me find my child?’”

What Ladonia did say, however, was very different and highly disturbing.

Ladonia told Mr. Long and the CBS9 news crew also present that she fell asleep in her bed with Kyon on her chest and remembered rolling over after that. Then, she dropped a bomb: “The last time I had him, he was in the bed with me; when I woke up, he was unresponsive.”

At that point, Ladonia said, she panicked. “And after that, a lady called my phone and questioned me about the whereabouts about him, and I got frustrated about the situation about him and the household, and she just was like, can she come and take a look at him? And after that, she came to the house, and I panicked, and after that, I went outside and talked to the lady out front on the porch, and we was just having a mutual conversation about him, and after that… she just left. So after that, I came back in the house with Kyon…”

With a flat, emotionless, somewhat dazed affect, Ladonia described taking the baby outside to see if he was breathing, then going back inside before taking a walk about four times around the block. “…when I came back in the house, I still noticed that he wasn’t breathing anymore, so I went outside, came back in the house, and got a blanket and his car seat and wrapped it up and took it outside and disposed of it in the trash. And that’s what happened.”

She said she didn’t call anyone after this happened. When asked who called the police on Friday, Ladonia shook her head, and a man, later identified as Kyon’s father, standing just out of frame spoke up, saying, “I did.”

Kyon’s father, whose name has not been released, said in the video, “…I’m looking for my son. I’m still not satisfied until I find that body. Whether or not he’s dead…”

The reporter asked, “Do you know where the body is?”

Ladonia replied, “No.”

When asked if police knew the baby “didn’t make it,” Ladonia once again said, “No.”

Near the end of the video, we learned that Kyon was premature and stayed in the hospital for one to two weeks prior to being sent home. His father said that when Kyon went missing, he was just over seven weeks old.

Mr. Long, shocked at the revelation, turned the video over to police, who, at that point, obviously began considering Ladonia a person of interest in her son’s disappearance and suspected foul play. Sources say Ladonia’s apartment was searched as part of the investigation. 

Mr. Long told a reporter he was glad Ladonia spoke with him and the news crew that was present, saying, “It shows she has some kind of decency in her because she could have sat there and just told us nothing.”

Ladonia reportedly has several other children, possibly as many as five. D.C. Child and Family Services acknowledged the fact that Kyon had several siblings but would not discuss their current status or location.

On Monday, May 10, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser announced that although Kyon’s mother was being questioned about the baby’s disappearance, she had not been arrested and was not in police custody. Ladonia was then and is currently the only person of interest in her son’s disappearance.

That afternoon, the Sheriff’s Department in Charles City County, southeast of Richmond, Virginia, made a Facebook post that it was assisting the MPD “in the search of a missing infant case at the Waste Management Landfill” in that county. A helicopter hovered overhead as law enforcement officials, as well as cadaver dogs, sifted through trash and debris at the landfill, which is located about 150 miles from the apartment where Kyon was last seen. 

The MPD has also searched a landfill in Lorton, Virginia, as well as trash cans, dumpsters, and garbage trucks in the D.C. area.

On Thursday, May 13, MPD Chief Robert Contee announced that investigators are in possession of a video showing Ladonia Boggs throwing some items into the trash, although he did not specify what the items were. Chief Contee said the search of the Waste Management landfill would be suspended the same day, adding, “Hopefully, we’ll be coming to some resolution on that very soon. I know there’s a lot of media reporting out on that we’re doing everything that we possibly can to locate this child. At this point I know there’s some reports out there, yes, the mother is a person of interest; in fact, she is the only person of interest at this time, so we’re just working through that very carefully with our partners at the U.S. Attorney’s Office to make sure that we do the things that we need to do as we move to the next step in this.”

According to Chief Contee, Ladonia may face charges. “This is just a tragic, very unfortunate case for this child to be unaccounted for these many days. I am hopeful, and remain hopeful that just perhaps this child is out there. I want to make sure we do everything as the Metropolitan Police Department to locate that child if that child is alive. And unfortunately, if the child is not alive that we hold people accountable.”

To date, Kyon has not been found. Anyone with information about his disappearance is asked to contact the MPD at (202) 727-9099.

Click here for my ongoing coverage of Kyon’s story.

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Sources: ABC7 News, WUSA9, Shore News Network, 6 News Richmond, Fox 5, NBC 4 Washington, CBS 12