Elijah Lewis.Photo: New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office
A New Hampshire mother whose missing son was foundburied in a shallow gravelast month allegedly described the child as “the next Ted Bundy and Jeffery Dahmer” and said she wanted him “gone.”
Danielle Dauphinais is behind bars facing witness tampering and child endangerment charged in connection to the disappearance of her son, Elijah Lewis.
While Dauphinais has not been charged with the 5-year-old’s death, troubling new messages sent months before he went missing give an insight into the boy’s turbulent relationship with his mother.
“I call him the next Ted Bundy and Jeffery Dahmer,” Dauphinais allegedly wrote to her friend Erika Wolfe on Snapchat in June, theBoston Globereports. “It’s so sad but I have no connection with this child. His father took him at the age of one and never returned him until last May 2020. He’s been getting worse and worse. I want him gone. I can’t handle it anymore.”
Wolfe told the paper — who reviewed the messages — that she and Dauphinais grew up together but had not been in contact for years. The two exchanged messages briefly in June when Dauphinais randomly replied to one of Wolfe’s Snapchats about her experience with her own son.
Dauphinais described to Wolfe how her son played with his own feces and urinated on his own bed and clothing.
“I have to keep him in his room,” she wrote. “I can’t trust him at all.”
Danielle Dauphinais.
Dauphinais also revealed that the state’s child welfare agency was involved but could do nothing without the consent of Elijah’s father, calling the situation “a [expletive] nightmare that I can’t wake up from.”
“In my mind, I’m thinking [New Hampshire Division for Children, Youth and Families] is probably checking in,” Wolfe told theGlobe. “I thought, ‘Oh, you’re having a rough time, and probably not the best comment choices, and we all have our days.'”
After the exchange, Wolfe forgot about the messages until she heard the news of Elijiah’s disappearance.
“I remembered those messages,” she recalled. “And I was like, ‘Oh, no.'”
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It’s unclear how long Elijah had been unaccounted for before he was reported missing to New Hampshire authorities on Oct. 14. At the time of his disappearance he lived with his mother and her boyfriend, Joseph Stapf.
Initially it was reported that Elijah hadn’t been seen in six months, however, authorities later said he was believed to have been seen at the home sometime within the previous 30 days,WHDHreports.
Still, neighbors told theGlobethey rarely saw the child outside and a Merrimack School District official said Elijah was never enrolled.
Dauphinais and Stapfwere arrestedin New York City on Oct. 17. Elijah’s body was found in a wooded area in Abington, Mass., on Oct. 23. Stapf also faces charges of witness tampering and child endangerment.
Both Dauphinais and Stapf have pleaded not guilty to the charges they face.
source: people.com
