A 28-year-old woman was taken into custody after police found the body of her 6-year-old son in the trunk of her car in a suburb of Minneapolis, local authorities said.
Police in Orono, Minnesota, said the woman and a man were arrested on suspicion of murder after the boy's body was found Friday following a report of a vehicle with a smashed rear window being driven with a flat tire.
When the agents stopped the car, they observed that there was blood inside the vehicle.
Eli Hart, age 6. GoFundMe via NBC News.
Police have not released details about the boy or the circumstances of his death.
The detainees have not yet been formally charged.
Relatives of the woman said the boy's father, Tory Hart, was trying to get custody of her.
The minor had been returned to his mother in December, after almost a year in foster care because she had not cared for him properly.
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The boy's behavior changed after his mother regained custody, according to relatives, who said he had misbehaved at school and was showing signs of anxiety.
Nikita Kronberg, who was his foster mother for 11 months, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that Dakota County social workers "failed the boy."
The social worker in charge of the case did not respond to messages from the newspaper.
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The newspaper also released an email sent to social workers on March 25 by the boy's father in which he expressed concern that his son was suffering "mental and emotional abuse."
The father's fiancée told the newspaper that the boy was patient and happy, loved playing with miniature cars and wanted to be a firefighter.
He suffered from a rare genetic disorder that caused kidney disease and used a hearing aid for hearing problems.
