On Monday morning, five-year-old Kamden Johnson was dropped off at Community Daycare but never showed up at Collier Elementary School for class.
News 5 has reached out to the Mobile County School System for information on how they alert parents when children fail to show up for class and are waiting for more information.
Monday afternoon around 2 p.m., a group of school children discovers a child’s body off Demetropolis Road, and police work to identify him as Kamden Johnson.
Later that night, Valerie Patterson, an employee at Community Church Ministries meets with police who book her into Mobile Metro Jail for a Class C Felony of Abuse of a corpse.
“She came in on her own accord and spoke with our officers and subsequently was later charged,” Mobile Police Chief Lawrence Battiste said during a press conference.
Tuesday morning, District Attorney Ashley Rich upgraded Patterson’s charge to manslaughter after court documents indicate that Kamden Johnson died from being left in the daycare’s van. Final autopsy results have not been released but preliminary results showed there was no physical trauma to the 5-year-old boy.
A few hours later, Jasmyn Williams Johnson, Kamden’s natural mother, filed a lawsuit against Community Church ministries and daycare operators.
Despite the pending lawsuit, Community Church Ministries held a prayer vigil Tuesday evening and addressed the controversy.
“We are hurting we are dying inside they lost Kamden. We lost Kamden. We lost him. We lost him. We lost him,” said Co-Owner Angela Coker.
“Everybody knows Valerie was our special case. She has cancer. She is already fighting for her life. She’s got children and going through a divorce,” said Coker.
According to Mobile Police, they have not responded to any citizen complaints/ incident reports at the daycare between 2012-2017 (the dates we requested records for).
