A North Canton Ohio 5-year-old was found dead in her family’s restaurant, and her mother and father are being charged in the case.
The parents of 5-year-old Ashley Zhao have been booked into Stark County Jail after their child was found dead in their restaurant Tuesday, according to Cleveland 19 News.
The mother, Mingming Chen, is being charged with murder in her daughter’s death, and the father, Liang Zhao, has been charged with complicity.
According to police, Ashley’s body was found “concealed” in the family-owned restaurant, the station reported.
Originally, police assumed the child had wandered off from Ang’s Asian Cuisine at about 5 p.m. Tuesday evening, after the parents reported her missing, Cleveland 19 News noted.
The parents reportedly told authorities that their daughter went to the back of the restaurant around 5 p.m. to take a nap, but when the mother went to wake her up about four and a half hours later, the child was missing.
Police issued a search for the missing girl, but when investigators found the body “concealed” in the restaurant, near the kitchen’s freezer, the focus quickly became centered on the parents, according to the New York Daily News.
Despite Chen telling police that her daughter had been taken from her bed, police said there was no sign of a struggle.
Instead, police found out that Chen had beat Ashley numerous times with her fist on Monday morning, the Daily News said, adding that police said the injuries that the child suffered from the beating led to her death.
The Cleveland Heights Patch reported that the child’s father had performed CPR on his daughter, but it didn’t work.
BCI crime scene units went to the family’s apartment complex late Tuesday, where they spoke with one of their neighbors, WMBF News Cleveland noted.
“I’ve never spoke to them, I’ve just seen her in passing,” neighbor Treva Rohr told the station. “It was sad, very very sad.”
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