Elijah Lewis.Photo: New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office
Both have pleaded not guilty to the charges.
On Oct. 23, six days after the couple’s arrest, authoritiesfound human remainsin a wooded area in Abington, Mass., that later were identified as the boy’s. A state police cadaver dog discovered the remains buried near Ames Nowell State Park, Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz said at a news conference.
Danielle Dauphinais.
Elijah’s mother allegedly described him last month to a friend as “the nextTed BundyandJeffrey Dahmer” and said she wanted him “gone.”
“I call him the next Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer,” Dauphinais allegedly wrote to her friend Erika Wolfe on Snapchat in June, theBoston Globereports. “It’s so sad but I have no connection with this child. His father took him at the age of one and never returned him until last May 2020. He’s been getting worse and worse. I want him gone. I can’t handle it anymore.”
Wolfe told the newspaper — which reviewed the messages — that she and Dauphinais grew up together but had not been in contact for years. The two allegedly exchanged messages briefly in June when Dauphinais randomly replied to one of Wolfe’s Snapchat messages about her experience with her own son.
Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up forPEOPLE’s free True Crime newsletterfor breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases.
Dauphinais allegedly described to Wolfe how her son played with his own feces and urinated on his own bed and clothing.
“I have to keep him in his room,” Dauphinais wrote. “I can’t trust him at all.”
Elijah Lewis.Facebook
Dauphinais also allegedly revealed on Snapchat that the state’s child welfare agency was involved but could do nothing without the consent of Elijah’s father, calling the situation “a [expletive] nightmare that I can’t wake up from.”
“In my mind, I’m thinking [New Hampshire Division for Children, Youth and Families] is probably checking in,” Wolfe told theGlobe. “I thought, ‘Oh, you’re having a rough time, and probably not the best comment choices, and we all have our days.'”
After the exchange, Wolfe forgot about the messages until she heard the news of Elijiah’s disappearance.
“I remembered those messages,” she recalled. “And I was like, ‘Oh, no.'”
At the time of his reported disappearance Elijah was living with his mother and Stapf. But neighbors told theGlobethey rarely saw the child outside and a Merrimack School District official said Elijah was never enrolled.
Inannouncing the arrestsof Dauphinais and Stapf, the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office alleged in the witness tampering charge “that they each asked other people to lie about Elijah and where he was living knowing that child protection service workers were searching for Elijah,” according to a news release. “The endangerment charge alleges that they violated a duty of care, protection or support for Elijah.”
source: people.com
