Mother of missing Texas girl wants to hope she’s alive

HOUSTON – The mother of a 4-year-old Texas girl who hasn’t been seen for weeks says she wants to hope her daughter is still alive.

Brittany Bowens told KTRK television Friday that she may never know what really happened to Maleah Davis but that “as a mother” she wants to hold onto hope.

Bowens’ former fiancé, Derion Vence, reported the girl missing in early May, saying she’d been abducted after he pulled over on a Houston highway. Police later said the story didn’t add up.

After days of searching for the girl, police arrested Vence on a charge of tampering with evidence, specifically a human corpse. Authorities have not said he killed Maleah, but investigators found blood in Vence’s apartment and search dogs detected the scent of human decomposition in his car.