New Jersey

Mystery Surrounds Death of Baby, Now Identified, Found Dead in an Alley in Camden, New Jersey

No arrests have been made in connection to the boy's death. A Camden County detective said the death does not appear to have been related to a stranger abduction.

Jah'vi Brown was last seen in August 2018, according to police investigators, yet he wasn't reported missing by his parents — or anyone else, for that matter — until early December.

That's when his father came to the Bellmawr Township Police Department "regarding a custody issue" of Jah'vi, the Camden County Prosecutor's Office said in a statement released Friday.

What happened in the time between Aug. 20, when Jah'vi was last officially seen, until Dec. 6 when his father walked into Bellmawr's police department, was a mystery — until now.

Jah'vi's story has a tragic ending: the 1-year-old boy has been identified as the child found dead Oct. 11 in a Camden alleyway, the prosecutor's office said.

"A known DNA sample of the missing boy was compared to the remains and his identity was confirmed to be Jah'vi Brown," the prosecutor's office said in the statement. 

Jah'vi's "badly decomposed" body was found in the 800 block of Mount Ephraim Avenue.

No arrests have been made as investigators try to determine how and when the little boy died. The boy's parents, Anthony Burnett, 25, of Camden, and Tynaizaha Brown, 23, of Bellmawr, have been interviewed by detectives.

The child's death has not been ruled a homicide, police said.

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