On June 6, Tonya Slaton, 44, was stopped in the Hampton, Virginia area on I-64 by police for driving with expired tags. Police discovered the remains during the traffic stop and Slaton was charged with alleged concealment of a dead body, WFXG reports.
The remains were confirmed as Slaton’s son Quincy by the Office of the Medical Examiner. Investigators noted the last record of the young boy was when he was a 12-year-old seventh-grade student at Virginia Beach Middle School in 2004. Davis and his mother lived on Sunning Hill Court in Virginia Beach at the time of his disappearance, police say.
The officer who stopped Slaton’s car found a black trash bag containing human remains in the trunk of the car, Pix11 reports.
When the officer pulled her over regarding the expired tags, an inquiry found that the car “was not registered in Virginia and the license plates on the vehicle were not found on file with the Department of Motor Vehicles,” the affidavit reported.
In the process of impounding the vehicle and taking inventory, the officer discovered the black trash bag. Police say a strong odor of rotting flesh emanated from the bag, and the body was reportedly double-bagged and sealed with duct tape.
It’s alleged that Slaton threw clothes on top of the bag and told the officer that the bag was full of clothes. The trooper noticed a large white stain on the floorboard behind the driver’s seat. The affidavit reports that she told the officer that she spilled bleach.
Davis’ whereabouts can’t be accounted for since 2004, according to police, who are trying to piece together a timeline of what happened to him over the past 11 years, HamptonRoads reports. A missing person report for Davis was never filed.
Slaton is being held in jail without bond, and police say additional charges are pending. Online court records report that she is scheduled to appear Monday in Hampton General District Court.
Slaton has one other adult son, police say.
The state medical examiner is trying to determine when Davis died, said Corinne Geller, a state police spokeswoman. No information regarding the cause and manner of his death has been released, HamptonRoads reports.
Police confiscated 15 items from the car Slaton was driving, a Ford Mustang — including the plastic bag containing human remains, carpeting from the trunk of the car, a sunshade, and carpeting from the driver’s and passenger side rear floor.
The search warrant reports that police took DNA swabs from Slaton and the car she was driving, an iPhone, keys, a toothbrush, two towels, a letter and envelope, a paper box and a white sweater that may have hair fibers on it.
Police are asking that anyone who saw Davis or knew or went to school with him to contact them to help them solve the puzzle of what happened to him after 2004.
“What may be a small detail to someone could be a huge detail for our investigators,” Sgt. Steve Vick said at Friday’s press conference at the state police field office in Chesapeake, HamptonRoads reports.
In Hampton in 2008, Slaton was convicted of alleged attempted maiming and shooting inside an occupied dwelling, online court records say. She was sentenced to 15 years on both charges, but 11 were suspended and she was placed on supervised probation for 15 years on each count.
In 2007, Slaton was inside a home with a man when an argument started, police say. She grabbed a gun out of her car, went back to the home and allegedly tried to shoot at the man, but the gun didn’t fire. The couple struggled for the gun until the man broke free and ran to a bedroom, a police news release said. She allegedly fired numerous shots through the closed bedroom door but missed the man, who fled through a window and called the police.
Slaton and the man were in a relationship for six months prior to the incident, according to a letter from a representative of the Hampton public defender’s office filed in Hampton Circuit Court before her sentencing. The sentencing-mitigation advocate who wrote the letter said the couple presented “classic signs” of an abusive relationship.
Prior to being incarcerated in 2007, she worked in the medical billing industry for ten years, HamptonRoads reports. Well-liked and respected by her co-workers, her supervisor said she was “extremely intelligent, accurate in her work, an expert in computers, very well organized and kind,” the affidavit said. Slaton was “extremely embarrassed and ashamed” of the incident, and asked her friends and co-workers not to attend her sentencing.
Slaton is scheduled to appear in court on June 22, per WFXG.
Quincy Jamar Davis was born on June 23, 1990. On Tuesday, he would have turned 25, HamptonRoads reports.
