Parents of missing North Las Vegas girl held without bail
The parents of a missing 3-year-old girl, each facing a murder charge in connection with her disappearance nearly seven months ago, were ordered held without bail on Monday.
Zaela Walker was reported missing Aug. 25, when officers were called to a home on the 4600 block of Mission Cantina Avenue, near North Fifth Street and Lone Mountain Road in North Las Vegas.
After no “substantive information” about Zaela’s whereabouts in almost seven months, police arrested her parents on suspicion of murder on Friday, the North Las Vegas Police Department said.
Zaela’s mother, 27-year-old Lakeia Walker, and the girl’s father, 27-year-old Ricky Beasley, appeared before North Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Natalie Tyrrell on Monday via video conference from the Clark County Detention Center.
Beasley initially was arrested in December in connection with Zaela’s disappearance, and was charged with first-degree kidnapping and child abuse or neglect, as well as traffic-related charges.
The girl’s maternal grandmother, Carla Richardson, had called police on Aug. 25 to file a missing persons report, she told the Las Vegas Review-Journal in November. In court, she declined to speak with a reporter.
Richardson originally said she had not seen her granddaughter for nearly two weeks when she filed the report. During that time, Walker repeatedly told her that Beasley had taken Zaela to California to visit her paternal grandfather, Richardson said.
Contact David Ferrara at dferrara@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-1039. Follow @randompoker on Twitter.
