Watch CBS News

Where is "Baby Girl Jackson?" Mom withholding info about missing infant, cops say

KINGMAN, Ariz. -- An Arizona couple has been charged as authorities look for "Baby Girl Jackson," a missing 4-month-old girl born to the woman in Nevada, officials said Monday.

Authorities in Arizona, California and Nevada are involved in the investigation and there are several leads, including the couple's membership in a Las Vegas church, said Steve Auld, who is a Mohave County, Arizona, attorney's investigator.

"We're quite concerned," Auld said. "If anybody has that baby and knows we're looking for her, they're guilty of kidnapping as far as Mohave County is concerned."

June 1 indictments charge 33-year-old Octavia Jackson and 37-year-old Nicholios Nealy of Fort Mohave with custodial interference and Jackson with perjury and unsworn falsification.  

Auld told the Las Vegas Review Journal that Arizona Department of Child Services officials began a child abuse investigation 14 months ago that was focused on Nealy and Jackson, who say they're married and are the parents of 12- and 13-year-old girls and an 8-year-old boy.

Auld told the paper a Mohave County judge ordered the three children be placed under the care of the state on April 29, 2016. He said during custody and placement hearings for the kids that authorities learned that Jackson had given birth to another daughter at a Las Vegas hospital on Feb. 10.  

Auld said Jackson initially denied giving birth earlier this year but later acknowledged she had and withheld additional information. She was reportedly jailed May 24 for contempt of court after allegedly refusing to say where the infant was. Nealy was reportedly jailed on June 7 for failing to turn the infant over to the Department of Child Services, the paper reports. 

The name of the infant is unknown. Authorities are calling her "Baby Girl Jackson." The couple had also lived in the San Diego area, the paper reports.

Both remained in jail and an attorney for Nealy didn't immediately return a call for comment on the allegations. It's not known whether Jackson has an attorney who could comment on her behalf.

Spokesman Darren Daronco of the Arizona Department of Child Services said he didn't immediately have any information to provide.

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.