May 27, 2021
A guilty plea has been entered in a case that received national media coverage in 2019. Derion Vence pleaded guilty today to tampering with a corpse and injury to a child in death of 4-year-old Maleah Davis. Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg announced Vence was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
Vence reportedly had a relationship with the girl's mother. Vence, Maleah and her little brother were all reported missing the morning of May 4, 2019. When Vence and Maleah’s brother showed up at a hospital late that night, Maleah was not with them. Her remains were found by the side of a road in Arkansas a month after she disappeared.