Police: Dad Admits Burying Missing Children in Mississippi and Alabama
Dec. 7, 2010— -- Police are trying to find the bodies of two children whose disappearance went unnoticed for months and now the kids' father and stepmother are blaming each other for the deaths.
Police in Mobile, Ala., sayJohn DeBlase, 27, has admitted burying one child this past March in Mississippi, and another in June in Alabama.
But no one realized the children had vanished until November when stepmother Heather Leavell Keaton told police that 5-year-old Natalie and 3-year-old Chase DeBlase were missing. Keaton allegedly told police she feared DeBlase had killed the children.
Mobile Police Chief Michael Williams said DeBlase has not admitted to killing the children, only to burying them.
"He's given us an indication of a location where they may be, where he remembers burying the children. So the investigators will go out and they will scout those areas with a team of people, with cadaver dogs and with the teams that do that for a living," Williams said.
But police say DeBlase is blaming Leavell-Keaton for the children's death. Leavell-Keaton is currently in custody in Louisville, Ky., and awaiting extradition to Mobile, Louisville police told ABC News.
"He's placing the blame on Heather, and Heather's placing the blame on him," Mobile Police Officer Chris Levy said.
Police, however, say both are responsible.
"Detectives have determined that both John Deblase and Heather Keaton are responsible for the deaths of 3-year-old Jonathan DeBlase and 4-year-old Natalie DeBlase, and police will continue to search for the children," Levy said in a press release.
DeBlase was arrested in Florida on Friday and charged with abuse of a corpse and aggravated assault in connection with the case police said. Leavell-Keaton was arrested on an outstanding warrant charging her with child abuse.
The grisly story came to the attention of police on Nov. 18 when Leavell-Keaton allegedly told police she feared the children were dead, a report from the Louisville Police Department states. The report says she was requesting a restraining order against DeBlase.
