10-17-2011, 11:15 AM
AZCentral
Jerice Hunter, the mother of a Glendale 5-year-old girl missing since last week, said Sunday in an interview with 12 News that she is a suspect in her daughter's disappearance.
The girl's grandmother said Sunday that state Child Protective Services has removed the girl's three siblings from their pregnant mother.
Glendale police said Sunday they are continuing their investigation into the disappearance of Jahessye Shockley and that the mother's criminal history of child abuse is part of the probe.
Hunter's conviction in a child abuse case "is part of what we are looking at," Glendale police Sgt. Brent Coombs said. "They (investigators) are aware of her criminal history."
Glendale police have said that Hunter is not a focus of the investigation and that they are exploring many aspects of the case.
In 2006, while living in California, Hunter, then 32, pleaded no contest to four counts of corporal injury to a child. She had four children at the time, a teenage boy and three young girls. Jahessye was not yet born.
Court papers say that between April and October 2005, Hunter and her husband, convicted sex offender George Shockley, did "willfully and wrongfully inflict cruel and inhuman corporal punishment and injury, resulting in a traumatic condition" upon all four children.
Hunter was sentenced to eight years in prison. It is unclear why and when she was released.
A court-appointed psychologist concluded Hunter deeply regretted whipping one of the children with an extension cord and that counseling would help her learn more effective parenting skills, according to court records.
On Sunday, the children's grandmother, Shirley Johnson of California, said the family is devastated that Jahessye's three sisters, ages 13, 7 and 9, are no longer at home. Worse, she said, is that they have been split up and are staying with three different foster families.
"What kind of message is that sending their sister?" Johnson asked, referring to Jahassye. "That they can be taken too?"
Hunter said she had returned from running an errand earlier Tuesday when she discovered Jahassye, whom she had left with her other children, was gone.
Coombs, the police spokesman, confirmed that the children "are in a safe place." CPS could not be reached for comment.
In an interview last week, Johnson acknowledged her daughter's troubled past but said she had turned her life around and was devoted to her children.
" I need a lawyer to help me get these other kids," she said.
![[Image: 101611jerice3.jpg]](http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm166/crankycrankerson/Jahessye%20Shockley%20%20-AZ-/101611jerice3.jpg)
Jerice Hunter, the mother of a Glendale 5-year-old girl missing since last week, said Sunday in an interview with 12 News that she is a suspect in her daughter's disappearance.
The girl's grandmother said Sunday that state Child Protective Services has removed the girl's three siblings from their pregnant mother.
Glendale police said Sunday they are continuing their investigation into the disappearance of Jahessye Shockley and that the mother's criminal history of child abuse is part of the probe.
Hunter's conviction in a child abuse case "is part of what we are looking at," Glendale police Sgt. Brent Coombs said. "They (investigators) are aware of her criminal history."
Glendale police have said that Hunter is not a focus of the investigation and that they are exploring many aspects of the case.
In 2006, while living in California, Hunter, then 32, pleaded no contest to four counts of corporal injury to a child. She had four children at the time, a teenage boy and three young girls. Jahessye was not yet born.
Court papers say that between April and October 2005, Hunter and her husband, convicted sex offender George Shockley, did "willfully and wrongfully inflict cruel and inhuman corporal punishment and injury, resulting in a traumatic condition" upon all four children.
Hunter was sentenced to eight years in prison. It is unclear why and when she was released.
A court-appointed psychologist concluded Hunter deeply regretted whipping one of the children with an extension cord and that counseling would help her learn more effective parenting skills, according to court records.
On Sunday, the children's grandmother, Shirley Johnson of California, said the family is devastated that Jahessye's three sisters, ages 13, 7 and 9, are no longer at home. Worse, she said, is that they have been split up and are staying with three different foster families.
"What kind of message is that sending their sister?" Johnson asked, referring to Jahassye. "That they can be taken too?"
Hunter said she had returned from running an errand earlier Tuesday when she discovered Jahassye, whom she had left with her other children, was gone.
Coombs, the police spokesman, confirmed that the children "are in a safe place." CPS could not be reached for comment.
In an interview last week, Johnson acknowledged her daughter's troubled past but said she had turned her life around and was devoted to her children.
" I need a lawyer to help me get these other kids," she said.