Boy finds 5-year-old sister with sock in mouth, MO cops say. Two face murder charge

Two women have been charged with murder after a 5-year-old girl was found dead inside their Missouri home, police say.

Officers in Waynesville were dispatched to the home around 8 a.m. on Tuesday, March 7, when the girl’s older sibling told a school resource officer the 5-year-old was “unconscious and unresponsive” earlier that morning at the home, police said in a news release.

The older sibling, according to a probable cause statement obtained by KOLR, said he saw his sister had a sock in her mouth as she laid on the floor before he left for school that day.

Another sibling answered the door when officers arrived and told the first responders that her 5-year-old sibling was dead, police said. The girl’s body was found under a blanket, KRCG reported.

The 5-year-old victim was pronounced dead at the scene, Waynesville police said. She has not been publicly identified and a cause of death has not been reported.

“An officer noticed ‘significant’ marks on her wrists, ankles and neck, as well as a gray sock with blood on it next to the body,” KMIZ reported, citing the probable cause statement. “It was also ‘saturated with an unknown substance.’”

The Pulaski County Prosecutor’s Office said two women, Angela West and Shamira Buford, have been charged in the girl’s death. Their relationships to the girl were not stated.

One of the siblings told police that West and Buford often tied the child to a bed, KY3 reported. The women said they would tie the girl up to prevent her from stealing food, according to KRCG.

One of the siblings was also instructed to help tie her younger sister, KMIZ reported.

“They started with duck tape on her wrists and ankles and eventually moved to ‘hog-tying’ her with nylon rope,” KOLR reported citing police. “The sock was to keep her from keeping the other children up at night with her ‘whining and crying.’”

West, 39, and Buford, 36, were charged with second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter, endangering the welfare of a child and child abuse, according to the prosecutor. They are being held in the Pulaski County Jail without bond.

Waynesville is within the Ozarks, about 130 miles southwest of St. Louis.

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