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On Saturday evening, Darion Vence reported that his 4-year-old stepdaughter Maleah Davis was kidnapped. Police and volunteer search groups have been searching for her for days now around where she went missing in Houston, Texas, and there are still many unanswered questions around her case, according to CBS News.
"My spirit is so broken, I feel so lost. I can't concentrate, I can't focus. It's so overwhelming for me. It doesn't seem real," Maleah's mother Brittany Bowens told ABC13. "(There's) so many thoughts going on in my mind on what could have happened."
As of right now, in fact there's very little that the authorities can rule out in terms of what happened to Maleah. The story of her alleged abduction came entirely from her stepfather, according to The Washington Post. As he told the Houston police, he was knocked unconscious and only woke up the next day, when he discovered that Maleah was missing and reported her disappearance to the police.
"We want to start checking every single dumpster just in case," Tim Miller Texas EquuSearch, an organization helping in the search for Maleah, told ABC13. "We believe in miracles. Let's hope we get one."
In the meantime, let's delve into the facts of the case – and the questions remaining.
Who Is Maleah Davis?
In August of 2018, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services removed Maleah Davis and her two brothers from their parents' house after hearing reports of abuse, as CNN reported. In February, then, a judge allowed the children back home, insisting that CPS visit the home once a month to check on things.
Besides her history of alleged abuse, Maleah has also had health issues recently. She underwent multiple brain surgeries in the past two months, according to The Houston Chronicle. Her mother told ABC13 the injuries that led to Maleah's surgeries happened because of a fall.
The Facts Of The Case
On Saturday evening, Vence went to a hospital with Maleah's sister to receive treatment, and it was then that he reported her missing, according to CNN. On Sunday, the Houston Police issued an Amber Alert over Davis' disappearance, according to KPRC 2 Houston. Since then, both police and groups of volunteers have been actively searching for Maleah.
The Full Story, From Maleah's Stepfather
Vence was the one who reported that Maleah was missing, and Vence's story is really the only one that the Houston police has to go on, according to CNN.
In his testimony to police, Vence said that he was driving to the airport with Maleah and her brother, when he heard something that sounded like a flat tire, CNN wrote. When he got out to check what had happened, he told police that three men who looked Hispanic stopped by their stopped car and said that Maleah "looks very nice, looks very sweet," per CNN. Vence then claimed that the men assaulted him, he lost consciousness, and when he woke up he was in the back of their truck with Davis and her brother. Then, as CNN wrote, Vence said he was in and out of consciousness for about 24 hours, and he finally awoke on Saturday evening on the side of a highway with Maleah's brother, but without Maleah.
Vence also said that his car was stolen, and the police reported that it was last caught on a traffic camera on Saturday.
What We Still Don't Know
As you can tell by now, there are still more questions than there are answers. Who were the three men who abducted Vence and the two children, and what was the motive? What happened to Vence's stolen car? And, of course, where is Maleah Davis? It's also an especially dire situation because of her brain injury and her ongoing recovery from surgery.
"I realize there's a lot blanks in the story," Houston police Sgt. Mark Holbrook said, according to CNN. He and his team and working on filling them in, though, and asking for the public to help in doing so.
