A 28-year-old woman was arrested in Minnesota after police found the body of her 6-year-old son in the trunk of her car, authorities and relatives said.
The woman was arrested along with a man on suspicion of murder after the boy was found, when police received a call about a vehicle with a smashed rear window and a flat tire, police said.
When officers stopped the vehicle in Mound, Minnesota, they found it was stained with blood.
Police have not released details about the minor or the circumstances of his death. As of Sunday, neither the woman nor the man had been officially charged.
Relatives said the boy’s father was trying to get custody of the child. The boy was returned to his mother in December after spending almost a year in foster care because the woman was not taking care of him properly.
Since the mother regained custody, the boy had been behaving erratically, misbehaving at school and displaying symptoms of anxiety, relatives said.
Nikita Kronberg, who was a surrogate mother for at least 11 months, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that social workers “badly failed this boy.”