Prime Crime: Solved Murders - 5-Year-Old Vanishes After Moving In with Mom From Hell

Episode Date: July 18, 2026

A five-year-old boy disappeared without a trace while living with his mother in New Hampshire. Shortly after Elijah Lewis vanished, his mother gave birth to another boy at her home. Three days later, Danielle Dauphinais’s boyfriend and the father of her newborn, Joseph Stapf, dropped the three-day-old infant off at a hospital under the Safe Haven Law. This sparked an investigation into their household, in which police realized Lewis was missing. Find out what happened to Elijah Lewis on this episode of “Prime Crime with Jesse Weber.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Hulu original series Furious is coming to Disney Plus, starring Emmy Rossum. Furious follows FBI agent Alice Black on the hunt for a mysterious and calculating serial killer. Both walk their own paths toward justice, and as their lives start to intertwine, the line between right and wrong begins to blur. Don't miss the three-episode premiere of the Hulu original series Furious on July 27th, only on Hulu on Disney Plus. The police have just tracked down Danielle Dauphinese and her boyfriend Joseph's staff here in a New York City subway station. And by the way, this is after a manhunt that crossed four states.

Can you go ahead and get back? Why are you going to go off and you know? I'm not going to exist. What is your color? Can you stand up? The reason for all of this is because the couple's little boy, five-year-old Elijah Lewis, is missing. In fact, he had been missing for weeks before police found out that he was gone. We never reported in a messia and we panicked.

We panicked. We were scared. We didn't know what to do. Do you think that somebody may have kidnapped? I don't know. We don't know. That's why we're so fucking good now. This is a race against time if police have any hope of finding Elijah alive.

When Daphnees and staff were originally found and arrested, they were charged with witness tampering and child endangerment. And that's because at that time, the authorities did not know whether or not Elijah was alive or dead. There are a lot of questions here. Was Elijah kidnapped? Did he wander off on his own? Did something maybe more sinister have? sinister happen. And why did police only now learn that he was gone?

The detectives questioned Daniel Dauphinese and Joseph's staff separately. They want to hear the story individually from each person. Lean on them. Figure out who's telling the truth, who's not telling the truth, and assess whether or not there's any discrepancies between their two stories. Tell me what your understanding of why we're here. Because you were wanted for questioning about my son in New Hampshire. So tell me, tell me about Elijah and what you understand of why we're here to talk about Elijah. Because he's missing.

Why do you tell us your story, what's going on? So like beginning of September, he's done it before. Took off while we sleep. This takes off. We found him before out the street. We found him before one time behind the shed. Okay. What can you tell me about that?

Well, I haven't been up there, so I don't know where he's at right now. I don't know where he's at. If I knew where he is, I would honestly tell you right now. But this story actually starts a year or so before Elijah goes missing, when he goes to live with his mother and her boyfriend in New Hampshire. Because before that, he had been living with his biological father, this is Dauphinay's ex-husband, Tim Lewis. They lived in Arizona. They got divorced in 2017 and Tim got custody of their one son, Elijah. Danielle goes back to New Hampshire, no custody for her.

So she's living in New Hampshire for three years and decides she wants to reconnect with her son, who she's really never seen. And Tim is very eager to let this happen. Now on the surface, letting Elijah get to know his mom and Merrimack New Hampshire seems reasonable, even a good idea. Marimac is a nice town. It's about an hour from Boston. It's close to Manchester and Nashua.

It's a typical New England nice small town. Danielle Daphonais, who's in her 30s. She has Elijah five years old with her former husband, and she has a young toddler at home, a two-year-old, and she also becomes pregnant. in early 2021 with her third child. Joseph is her boyfriend. He's a couple years younger than her.

He works intermittently, and they live with his mother. They're basically supported by Joanne, Joseph's mother. They're not really working either of them. But the situation is about to get a lot more complicated, because it turns out, and Dauphinase doesn't know this yet, Elijah struggles with developmental issues, and some of them are pretty severe. He has a neurologist, he has a psychologist, he has a whole slew of specialists. So just a whole host of behavioral issues that she's not aware of when she takes custody of her son.

Tim flies out to New Hampshire, drops the kid off and skid-ed-ed-out was back to Arizona. So you said in May of 2020, Tim just dropped him off at your house. Was there a discussion about that? Yeah, he said 30 days he was going to come back and pick him up. Did he say why he was dropping him off at your house? Because he wanted him to get to know me. And then I told him, well, I can't take him because I'm, you had to figure things out. Mm-hmm.

You know, you can't just take on a kid when you live in a basement. You know what I mean? With no room. Well, if you don't take them now, you're not going to get him at all. Now, Dauphinase knows this isn't the best sense. knows this isn't the best situation. But she's afraid if she doesn't act now, she may never see Elijah again.

So she agrees to this month-long visit. So Liza comes in May and you stop working in June and then do you get pregnant sometime in the winter or January? Okay, okay. And so you were taking care of you were pregnant and you were taking care of Laja, who was challenging and a toddler. Okay.

Okay. I was gone crazy. That's a lot. So I did, I mean, we never went outside. I was depressed. Okay. I was so, I never left a house. I felt like a prisoner of my house.

And then they realized there's, there's all these problems with Elijah, and he is more than they can handle. I think there had a lot of damage done there before he went to our attention. Because him would say, oh yeah. Tim would say, oh yeah, he's good, you can take showers by himself. The kid didn't have a clue how to take a shower. I always had to bathe them. I had to do everything for him, brush his teeth. Didn't know how to feed himself, not a single thing.

And Tim was like, yeah, yeah, he peed. He didn't have, like, all that stuff. He peed and pooped everywhere, every day. He would white poop on the furniture. He white poop on our clothes. He would pee in Joe's closet. And it was just everything. every day. Okay. Is he verbal? Does he, does he have words? Can he?

He talks, he can talk. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, like, if you talk to him, he can talk to you. But he doesn't know how to communicate. Like, he just completely shut down when his dad dropped him off. Tim Lewis does, in fact, keep tabs on Elijah during what's intended to be this 30-day visit. He calls, he video chats with Dauphinase. The problem is what he sees and what he hears worries him. She starts telling Tim, he's got to go now. I can't deal with him. He's pure evil. And Tim tells her, well, I don't have the money to fly out.

That's when he decides, well, maybe there's a problem. And I'll call DCYF, the division of children, youth, and families. And so DCYF did investigate. She gets the DCYF investigation to end by telling them, I'm going to send him away to my sister in California. And the sister's willing to take him. And there is an unsigned custody agreement for the sister to take him.

We don't really know why, but after this visit from DCYF, Dauphinese has this change of heart when it comes to Elijah. In June, Danielle says, I want to keep him for the whole school year of starting in September of 2020. So Elijah stays put in New Hampshire for the next year and everything seems to be okay. But then you go to September of 2021 and that is when everything falls apart.

That is when Elijah disappears. Towards the end of September. Towards the end of September. Yeah. Okay. We're in mid-October. So are we talking like almost a month? Why didn't you call the police?

We didn't want any, this, anything to happen. because DCYF would get involved and then my daughter would get taken away. The thing is, DCYF does get involved a second time. And it's through this very strange turn of events. She's pregnant throughout most of 2021 and gives birth in September of 2021

to a baby boy. So you had the baby in her bathroom? And lo and behold, it was a boy? Yes. Okay. And Joe brings the baby to the hospital and drops him off at a safe haven site. The baby tested positive for drugs. That prompted an investigation by DCYF and they trace the baby back to Dauphinase and staff.

When they go to the home, they have the history. They know that at one time Elijah was there and they don't see any signs of Elijah. This is really what prompts and sparks a much more thorough investigation. into the whereabouts of Elijah and to try to find out what had happened to him. This is early October of 2021. DCYF is investigating. Police are now investigating and they obtain a search warrant for the home and they want to talk to Danielle. And that's when she agrees to go in and talk to police. Dauphinace's claim she's headed for the police station, but that is not where she goes.

No, she and staff go on the lamp. Police launch a manhunt for them, and at the same time, there is this massive search for Elijah. We put out press releases starting last Thursday trying to find Elijah. The New Hampshire State Police Major Crime Unit, they've been working around the clock with all of their sister agencies in New Hampshire in this attempt. Here's the thing. Things are going to start to unravel. Okay?

And they're going on, they already have. You know, I mean, we found you pretty quickly. We have some of the most, some of the best investigators in, you know, this country has to offer working on this, okay? And they won't stop. Police want to make it clear they aren't playing games. They will find Elijah, even though it's been weeks. But they need the couple's help to do it.

We'll put the pieces back together, but there's a few pieces that you hold. They didn't know at this point whether or not he was alive or dead. And every minute that ticked by from those detectives and police officer standpoint was another minute lost where they didn't have an opportunity to really find Elijah and potentially save him from something really dangerous. We're making phone calls right now to put the helicopter in the air. We got our dogs coming. We're waking people up right now. to get all of our resources right here. We need to get a lot of resources they can throw at this in New Hampshire,

and they've got Massachusetts State Police at this point. They're able to get their cell phone data to find locations. They have drones. They have search dogs. Where do you think he is? Best guess. Because I'm telling you right now, we didn't do this a month ago, but we'll do it now. And there's still a chance.

Slim. But there's still a chance. If he wandered away, that maybe he was able to surprise. I live. Statistically speaking, the longer the child has been missing, the harder it is to find them. This area here? Whereabouts? So in what, on the other side of this street, in this wooded area?

On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being really short and one not being sure at all, how sure are you that we'll find something there. So that's a pretty good. That's a pretty good chance. Detectives questioned the couple on what happened the night Elijah went missing. What they're listening for is any clue as to where Elijah might be. So you get up to use the bathroom. You went over to Elijah's room.

And he piqued my head around the corner and he wasn't there. So I usually, what I usually do is I walk down to the lake and see if he's there. Because sometimes he'll be sitting on the bench. And then I walk up to the driveway in the little dome. And then I walk up and down the street. But he wasn't there. I turned around, came back in. I woke Joe up and I said, Elijah's gone.

Now in the other interrogation room, Joseph's staff is telling his story. The issue is, it's not entirely matching up with what Dauphinace has been saying. You woke up in the middle of the night and looked in his room and saw that he was gone? Or did you hear something that made you wake up? I just saw that he was gone. Both you and Danielle, sorry? Yeah, I told him. So what happened?

What happens next? What do you do next? What did you do? What do you mean? Is it just look for him? You want to look for him? Where do you go? The same spot where he was done before. Right off the bat, there was a discrepancy in their discussions with the police concerning who discovered that he was missing. You know, Daphne said it was her. Steph said it was him.

So pretty early on, the police started to piece together that one or both of them were not telling the truth. That's the predicament that we're right. Not that you're not being truthful, not that she's not being truthful, but you can't both be being truthful. How about the door to the outside of the house? It was cracked. Okay. When you say this, like it was cracked like an inch? Is that what you should show?

I mean, an inch or two. So do you think that after he went out that night, you think that he turned around and closed the door behind? I don't know. I couldn't tell you. because I don't see it. Daphne says, oh, it's very typical that Elijah would just wander off or leave. And she said that she found the sliding door slightly ajar, maybe an inch or so opened, and that he just slipped out in there.

And we all know as adults, the sliding glass doors are heavy, and they can be difficult for adults to move, much less a five-year-old child in the middle of the night. Is the door open? Is the door closed? Yeah. It's open. The door is open. About how much is it open?

It was like open like a foot or so. Yeah. So. Danielle was telling us the exact opposite. You can't both be right. You know what I mean? By that time, detectives have been questioning these two for hours. And still, there are no solid answers.

So basically, they've had enough. Eli didn't just walk out. We know that. We know that he didn't just walk out. And I know that you're scared. And I don't want you to, I don't want you to continue to go down. rabbit hole that it's why you guys think that you didn't walk out I don't understand because we've we've searched we've searched everywhere we searched

everywhere it's not our fault that he ran away but he didn't just run away we we firmly believe that he didn't just run away he would be he would have been located by now are you guys thinking that would take something to this before I don't think that he just walked out the door because we've had every resource imaginable look for him. I can only imagine that these detectives were just feeling so incredibly frustrated because how could these two people

who supposedly cared for him, how could they not be ready, willing, and able to say everything they know to try to get that child back? So we've been working around the clock since last Thursday. with a massive team of investigators, the best investigators in the state, and in all of New England, looking for your son.

What tactics do you think that we should be employing or where should we be looking for him? I don't know, I don't know. Where do you think he is? I have no f***ing idea. We did not hurt that fucking little boy and I do not appreciate you saying that we did.

I'm not saying that you did. No one heard that little boy. no one f*** hurt that little boy. We are not monsters. We are very good people. We are very nice. Our kids are well taken care of. We will not fucking hurt our kids.

When a concerned parent becomes defensive and frustrated with the police who are trying to help her child, that's not a normal or typical response. Her almost hostility towards the police while they're trying to do an investigation on behalf of her and her child. child certainly would have been a red flag for the police that she knew a lot more than what she was giving up at that time she's confirming without confirming there were suspicions about what

happened at this little boy finally police get a breakthrough in the search for elijah but unfortunately it is the news that they have been dreading from the start this morning uh state police uh cadaver dog and msp special emergency response team members located with presumed to be Elijah Lewis's body buried in the ground. An autopsy will be performed tomorrow here in Massachusetts at the Chief Medical Examiner's Office. And once we have a determination of cause and manner of death, we'll be examining all of our facts that we've gathered in the investigation and determining what, if any, further charges will be brought.

Elijah Lewis's body is found about an hour and a half from his home. And as soon as they lay eyes on him, the horrific reality of what he's been through becomes crystal clear. Elijah's 19-pound body, which was bruised and battered and bloodied, was found in a state park in Abington, Massachusetts, buried in a very shallow grave. The results of the autopsy of Elijah Lewis, are horrible. He died of severe violence and neglect. He has facial and scalp injuries, acute fentanyl intoxication, malnourishment, pressure ulcers, and his death has ruled a homicide. Police are now investigating and they obtain a search warrant for the home. And that's when they

find the blood and the drugs and the signs of abuse. Police are starting to ask about people's cell phones and their text messages. Danielle would text Joe after she got frustrated with Elijah and she punished him, tortured him. She at one point texted him a photo of Elijah's face that had been bruised up. She clearly been beating him and she texted, look at this kid's face.

Joe's staff, he wasn't an innocent bystander. He would text back like, yeah, that kid's a, P-O-S big time. They would text how much they hated him. He was beaten in the bathroom and his head was banged against the shower tile wall with such force that his head broke the shower tiles in their bathroom. She beat him to the point of unconsciousness and she left him in the bathtub, unconscious, bleeding. When staff came home, Elijah was actually still alive and rather than calling 9-9-1, calling 911 or getting someone to take them to the hospital.

Staff bandaged Elijah's head and put Elijah into his bed. And that's where Elijah passed away at some point during the night. What is particularly chilling, just bone chilling, is that when Daphnees learned that Elijah had died, she put in a text message to staff celebrating his death and saying, well, now we can be free. We're freed of this child, of this problem, essentially. Our thoughts are with Eli's family

in the entire Merrimack community. I'm glad and relieved that we were able to bring some closure to this part of the ongoing investigation and most importantly, help bring Eli home with some dignity. Obviously, a little boy is gone. Nobody deserves to die this way. And we need to make sure we do everything in our power

make sure we can get justice with this little boy. It has been six months since Elijah's body was found. And that is when Daniel Dauphinese is officially indicted on charges of first and second degree murder. And this is when prosecutors start piecing together what really happened after he seemingly disappeared. At 3 p.m. on October the 14th, DCYF reported to the Merrimack Police Department that Elijah was missing.

At 3.16 p.m., the defendant was on the phone with the Merrimack Police Department telling them that she would meet them at the police department by 4.30 that afternoon. At 320 that afternoon, the defendant and Mr. Staff withdraw money from Joanne's staff's account with Elijah's body in the back of their pickup truck. When Daphonaut and staff realized that the police were investigating and questioning Elijah's whereabouts, they originally told the police they would come in, voluntarily to the station to be questioned. Rather than going to the police station, as they had promised, they got $1,000 out of the bank. She and Joseph load Lodge's body into their truck, along with everything he owned, which wasn't much.

We're talking maybe a blanket, some comic books, and a stuffed Spider-Man doll. At 4.44 p.m., the defendant and Mr. Staff were at Target in Burlington, Massachusetts, to buy their new phones and some new phones. clothing and toiletries for their flight, Elijah's body in the back of the truck at the Target. They buy cash cell phones, but then they load up their Facebook account into the cell phone, thereby linking it to them and making it easy to track.

Between 1136 and 1152 that evening, the defendant and Mr. Staff were in Abington, Massachusetts where Joseph's staff buried Elijah in a shallow hole. They used the cell phone data to find out, where they stopped long enough to bury the body, to locate his body in the woods. Phone records in this case showed the defendant telling Mr. Staff at 1148 p.m. that it doesn't have to be big,

referring to the hole he was trying to dig. And at 12.04 that morning, saying it doesn't have to be far down, you know. In other words, just get the job done and let's get out of here. I mean, just chilling, just chilling. And after they buried Elijah's body, they then went to Mohegan Sun in Connecticut, which is a casino, caught a show,

slept in the truck overnight, then they abandoned the truck and went to New York City. When they found Joseph's staff's pickup truck in Mohegan Sun Casino, they found trash bags that had some of Elijah's stuff, a Spider-Man doll, some belongings of his with childlike handwriting. They were discarded just like Elijah and a trash bag. Here's a little guy and his only toy is this little stuffed Spider-Man. And I keep coming back to it. I keep thinking about that. He's buried in a fetal position in the dirt.

And they take his toy and they throw that away too. They throw away his spider man. Within hours, the defendant and Mr. Staff boarded a bus and left for New York City. On October the 17th, at 7 o'clock in the morning, about 7.13, the defendant and Mr. Staff were arrested in the subway in the Bronx, New York. I don't know what the f*** going on. What's going on? Oh. Okay. No.

No. Using cell phone data, they were able to track their whereabouts through their cell phones, and were able to identify their location. The prosecution has plenty of evidence against both Dauphinese and staff. Joseph's staff from the get-go was just as much a part of this as anything else. He's stonewalled. He knew that Elijah was being abused. He saw him that night in September. He said maybe we should feed him before we get rid of him so we don't get in trouble.

He knew. Joseph's staff sentencing hearing occurred before Danielle's. In September of 2022, he pled guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to up to 40 years in prison. I definitely think his motivation for pleading guilty of the manslaughter was trying to reduce his sentence. Now, after sentencing, staff stands before the parole board. And that is when he speaks out about his role in Elijah's life. I've never wanted this child to be abused. I wanted him to get help all along.

If he wanted Elijah to get help, he could have at any point over the 18 months that that kid was getting brutalized in his home by his drug-addicted girlfriend. For him to say now, oh no, I just wanted him to get help. The facts just aren't there for that. I'm a grown man. I know I should have been moving out a hard way, and that's the deal I'm struggling with.

He told the authorities that she had asked him to bury Elijah's body when they realized he was dead, and he said he couldn't do it. But then he puts him in a container outside of their house. They were outside of the sliding door. Where you were living? Yes. And how long had he been left there? I don't know, like a mother too, I don't know. So that kind of depravity, to me, undercuts any sense of guilt that he may have had in his,

or any responsibility that he assumed for his role in Elijah's death. Staff is granted parole on a lesser charge, but the bottom line is he will spend decades in prison for manslaughter and assault. Now, a couple of years later, Dauphinese goes to court, but at the 11th, hour, there's a change of plants. Dauphines pleaded guilty on the eve of trial to a second degree murder charge. She had originally been charged with first degree and second degree murder. But she ultimately pled guilty to the somewhat lesser charge of second degree murder,

which is a step above the manslaughter charge that her boyfriend staff fled guilty to. For Dauphinay's defense attorney, this is clearly an uphill battle. He's not even arguing for her innocence. What he tries to do is pain. her as a victim, the same way as her son. Yeah, the defense strategy here was to mitigate the circumstances as much as possible. I think they knew what they were up against. They knew that they were never going to secure not guilty.

So there was a lot of evidence that the defense just couldn't work their way around. If there's one word that could sum up this entire case, it would be the word nightmare. The nightmare that Elijah Lewis went through during all of his days, particularly at the end, the nightmare that Ms. Dauphine suffered throughout her entire life growing up, regular physical abuse was something that Danielle suffered in multiple homes, from her stepfather to her real father to foster placements these are the kinds of ways that she learned how to control a child I don't doubt she had a terrible childhood she had a just a terrible childhood she learned to to be an abusive parent she learned to be an

addict as a child so do a lot of people they don't kill kids they don't kill their little guys Now, because Dauphinese pleads guilty, obviously there's no trial, but she does get the opportunity to say her peace before the judge officially sentences her. All the agony that my son encountered, neglect, mistreatment, isolated, isolation, and malnourishment was horrible. No child should ever have to go through any and in particular that kind of abuse. That's what happened to me in many similar ways. I also was neglected, mistreated, isolated, and monitored by my parents and their partners. I'm so lucky to be alive.

I was also sexually abused by people who were supposed to protect me. Even so, Elijah never deserved any of the abuse. Parents are supposed to take care of their child. Daniel Dauphinese is so distraught as she's speaking to the court that she can barely get the words out. not know what to do. I was also deeped my intention not making great choices. Such as not contacting these who up to get the help Eliza needed because I was afraid that my daughter and my unpoor baby was, I can't do it. She broke down in the middle of reciting her presentation, which she was reading from a paper,

and one of her lawyers continued to read the account. I've been sober for three years. I will live with the guilt. and sadness that I participated in allowing my son to die. I also want to say that I am sorry to those that I let down, but most of all, to the one person who can't hear me ever again. I'm so sorry, Elijah, that I failed you as your mother. Before the judge officially sentences Daniel Dauphinese. Tim Lewis, this is Elijah Lewis's biological father,

gets the chance to speak. And what he says to his ex-wife, is shocking. I imagine he feels guilt about what happened. And he did notify the authorities a year before Elijah's death that he had concerns. You intentionally tortured starved, beat and brutally killed the five-year-old boy.

When you carry, you made a birthday. It's sick. You are absolutely the most pathetic excuse for a person. You are the very definition of evil, and I hope you never make it help. And before the judge sentences Dauphinese, the prosecution, speaking. one more time.

Elijah deserved to have a hero. He deserved for his father, mother, stepfather to all have been heroes. But now he has this community to be his hero. This is not a case that you can forget. The defendant's sentence should reflect the magnitude of the harm she caused. We're asking that you impose the sentence of 55 years to life on the second-degree murder charge. There was one thing about this hearing

that I found especially moving, and that is when the judge talks about Elijah. This is how people should remember Elijah. It's a picture, photograph of a defenseless, vulnerable, dependent little guy who is smiling, and you can see the life in him. You can see the love in that little boy's face.

And the judge held up a picture of Elijah from when he was healthy and smiling and just this beautiful little boy. And the judge made a point that that's how he wanted Elijah to be remembered. Not as an emaciated, injured, abused child that was found in a shallow grave with dirt on his face and on his body. One thing that was interesting that he said right up front in his statement was that every time that he does a sentencing, he looks. for redeeming qualities no matter what the crime. And he said he did that here and referenced a statement that he heard Dauphinace make that she wanted to help the little boy and that her heart hurt and she needed help. And later on, compared that to other statements that she made in text messages,

describing the child as a rotten kid, using the words that she hated him and other really horrific descriptions of the this boy. A slow, prolonged, and painful death of an innocent and blameless five-year-old a trail of words and actions that scream of the evil that was put upon this isolated, little defenseless, innocent child. We have to remove you from society and show society. from a judicial standpoint that justice will be done, and the community, especially the children of the community,

will be protected. His statement was powerful. He said various things about how he viewed both the conduct, which was abhorrent, and also about the way that the words of Dauphinese described to him what she was thinking. He said, your words are chords of terror, terror that rained down on this little boy.

And he said that the evidence was beyond overwhelming. It's a case, as I said before, that will stay with many in this courtroom. And it's a case that deserves significant, severe, and prolonged incarceration. With that all being said, if you would stand, I'm going to sentence you as follows. your plea of guilty to the crime of second degree murder. You are sentenced to the New Hampshire State Prison for not more than life nor less than 50 years. The sentence is consecutive to two sentences for witness camp ranks. Daphne has got the strictest sentence she could have gotten given the plea deal that she entered into. Her plea gives her the opportunity

of parole but not until she's 88 years old. This is such a an emotional case that even outside the courthouse after the hearing, there are some very powerful statements. Justice, I feel, was served a bit today. Knowing that she won't be getting out and she most likely die in prison is a huge relief. She did not show any remorse at all for her son and she deserves everything that she gets and I am glad to hear that she's being haunted by him. That's what she deserves. The judge called her pure evil. What would you call?

I agree, 100%. She is a snake. She's a chameleon, and she will do anything she can to manipulate her way to, you know, look better to people. Now, among the people to speak is the Merrimack Police Chief, and he admits this was a very tough case to investigate. I was wondering, you know, the saw some tears in your department. in there. This is personal for a good department. Absolutely, I mean, you know, no sentence is severe enough to equate what Elijah went through. But hopefully it can bring some closure for the officers that worked the case, the community, the whole.

The judge had quite a message today. What's your message as the chief? And there's a lot of people that knew Elijah was being neglected. There's a lot of people that didn't step up. There's a lot of people that didn't know where he was. When you see someone needs a hand, that some might be having a struggling day parenting, maybe just simply ask, hey, are you okay? And offer to help. It definitely does feel like Elijah was failed

on many levels by the adults around him and by the system itself. There were a lot of different people who could have any point stepped up and said something. They could have raised an alarm at that point in time. It's that basic old school messaging, right? If you see something, say something. I keep coming back to this little boy.

who was thrown away and thrown away and thrown away. Nobody wanted him. He needed help. No one wanted to give it to him. This is one of those stories I wish I could forget. And I know I can't, and I know I shouldn't, and I know nobody should forget it. Nobody forget Elijah and what happened to him, and he did it.

This is an incredibly dark story. There's no other way to say it. You're talking about generational child abuse, neglect, addiction. It is very hard to find any bright spots. But maybe, maybe, someone hearing this story, a parent who maybe feels overwhelmed will be encouraged to get some help or a friend will intervene if they feel like somebody they care about needs a hand.