Police confirmed on Saturday the body of 8-year-old Sophia Mason was found inside a central California home.
According to the Associated Press, the body was found on Friday, just days after Mason’s family members in the San Francisco Bay area of Hayward informed police that they had not had contact with the young girl since December. Mason reportedly stayed in multiple locations between Hayward and her Southern California home.
One relative said Monday she believes jealousy played a vital role in the child’s killing.
“We are, collectively, as a family devastated, sad, and, I think, numb and in a state of disbelief,” said Melissa Harris, Mason’s cousin.
“There’s a mixed bag of emotions, of course, because Samantha, her mother, is our family member also, and we love her,” Harris said. “We love Sophia, but also Sophia is an innocent victim in all of this.:”
The family’s missing person’s report led police to arrest Mason’s mother, 30-year-old Samantha Johnson. She was arrested on a warrant from a child abuse case in Alameda County last year, Merced police said in a statement on Saturday, KTVU reported.
Police issued a search warrant following Johnson’s statements. Her boyfriend, Dhante Jackson, 34, reportedly fled the scene after news spread about the search of his home, investigators said.
The Merced police did not explain how the young girl was killed or the couple’s role in the child’s death.
However, Johnson made an alarming phone call to her mother a week ago, Harris recalled.
“She said, ‘Next time I see you, mom, it will just be me and you, like it used to be,'” Harris said.
The grieving cousin said Johnson was seemingly jealous of the attention her 8-year-old daughter was getting from her family.
“She was very, almost jovial and joyous about the fact that she could be with her mother again without having Sophia present,” Harris said.
Mason spoke with her grandmother three weeks before her untimely death. Harris said that the young girl didn’t seem like her usual, bubbly self on the phone.
“She seemed very, very tired, almost drowsy as if she were drugged,” Harris said. “She wasn’t able to string together her sentences appropriately, and that raised red flags for my aunt.”
Johnson is being held on suspicion of murder and will be transferred to the Merced County Jail to face charges, police said.
Jackson has a warrant out for his arrest, and police believe he’s located in the Bay area.
