The live-in boyfriend of Mariah Wood’s mother has been formally charged with the three-year-old girl’s murder after a coroner confirmed she died of chloroform poisoning.
Earl Kimrey, 33, was charged Wednesday with first-degree murder and felony child abuse in the toddler’s slaying.
Mariah’s body was found December 2 in a creek in Pender County after she went missing from her trailer five days earlier.
Earl Kimrey, 32, was charged Wednesday with first-degree murder and felony child abuse in the death of Mariah Woods
Officials say Earl Kimrey (left) killed his girlfriend Kristy’s three-year-old daughter Mariah Woods (right) by using chloroform to poison her
Kimrey, an alleged meth and heroin addict, said he was the last person to see the little girl alive. He is pictured here during Wednesday’s court appearance
Kimrey previously had been charged with lesser crimes, including obstruction of justice and concealing a death.
Arrest warrants say Kimrey moved Mariah’s body from where she died, knowing her death was not natural.
Chloroform can be used as an anesthetic but its misuse can prove deadly.
A first-appearance court hearing was scheduled Wednesday afternoon for Kimrey, who’s being held without bond.
His attorney, Walter Paramore, didn’t immediately respond to a phone message seeking comment.
Kristy Woods (pictured with her daughter Mariah) reportedly knew about the abuse
Kimrey (above with Mariah’s mother Kristy) told police he was the last to see Mariah alive
Last month it emerged that Kimrey had allegedly sexually abused her before her death.
Kimrey, an alleged meth and heroin addict, was seen putting ‘his penis in the mouth’ of Mariah by a witness who lived in the family’s trailer with them, according to Child Protection Service documents.
Child services reports that his girlfriend, Mariah’s mother, 29, ‘knew Mr. Kimrey was sexually abusing the juvenile Mariah.’
Kimrey has a long criminal history which includes charges for larceny, assault, threats to government and being drunk and disorderly.
The charges date back to 2002 and stretch over several counties and two states.
Mariah was reported missing from her bed at around 6am on November 27 when her mom Kristy Woods went into her bedroom to wake her up and found she was gone.
Kristy made a tearful appeal to her daughter’s abductor in November and begged for her to be brought back
Mariah’s biological father Alex, right, who has not seen her for more than a year, said he did not believe Kimrey’s story that his daughter was abducted by a stranger
Mariah is pictured with her mother, her mother’s boyfriend, and her two older brothers
She revealed that the last person to see her daughter was her live-in boyfriend, Kimrey, who says he told the girl to go back to bed when she came out of her room around midnight.
They claimed that the youngster had been snatched from their home in the night but Mariah’s father, Alex, immediately suspected Kimrey who was later arrested.
‘Someone just walked right up in there, grabbed the 3-year-old out of the bed and she didn’t cry, she didn’t scream?’ he’d asked, incredulously, after she disappeared.
‘Nobody heard anything? Four people in the house, two adults and two kids, someone just comes up and snatches the baby and walks out?’, he aid.
Kristy had made a tearful television appearance after her daughter went missing, begging: ‘Please, bring her back.
‘I love her. I’ll do anything that I can, whatever you want.’
In announcing the murder charge, the sheriff’s office said, that the case is not yet closed.
The investigation ‘will continue until all leads and information is (sic) thoroughly evaluated,’ the office said.
Police and volunteers turned out in their hundreds in December to search for Mariah who, at that time, was still hoped to have been alive