A mural of George Floyd is shown in the intersection of 38th St & Chicago Ave on March 31, 2021 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Community members continue preparations during the third day in the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who is charged with multiple counts of murder in the death of George Floyd. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images) WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 01: President Donald Trump's lawyer and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani talks to journalists outside the White House West Wing July 01, 2020 in Washington, DC. Giuliani did an on-camera interview with One America News Network's Chanel Rion before talking to other journalists about Vice President Joe Biden and the news that Russian intelligence may have paid Taliban operatives to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) ORLANDO, FLORIDA - FEBRUARY 28: Former President Donald Trump addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference held in the Hyatt Regency on February 28, 2021 in Orlando, Florida. Begun in 1974, CPAC brings together conservative organizations, activists, and world leaders to discuss issues important to them. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) Here's what reported grand jury in Trump case may look like NEW YORK, NY - FEBRUARY 09: People walk past the Trump Tower as the impeachment trial of Donald Trump begins in Washington on February 09, 2021 in New York City. After listening to nearly four hours of legal arguments, the Senate has voted on Tuesday to move ahead with the impeachment trial of former President Trump. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) Report: US companies may have benefited from forced labor of Uyghurs WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 20: U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the conflict in the Middle East from Cross- Hall of the White House on May 20, 2021 in Washington, DC. Israel and Hamas announced that they would agree to a cease-fire, which will take into effect on Friday, following days of fighting that claimed more than 200 lives. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) SAN JOSE, CA - MAY 26: A view of the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) light-rail yard where a mass shooting occurred on May 26, 2021 in San Jose, California. A VTA employee opened fire at the yard, with preliminary reports indicating nine people dead including the gunman. (Photo by Philip Pacheco/Getty Images) A healthcare worker prepares to administer a Pfizer/BioNTEch coronavirus disease (Covid-19) vaccine at The Michener Institute, in Toronto, Ontario on December 14, 2020. - Ontario, Canada's most populous province and one of the hardest hit by the pandemic, had 1,940 new cases and 23 deaths on Monday. The province is expected to give its next doses to nursing home workers as a priority, according to media reports. (Photo by CARLOS OSORIO / POOL / AFP) (Photo by CARLOS OSORIO/POOL/AFP via Getty Images) 'Never seen levels like this': Union president on airline passenger misconduct Memorial Day weekend will bring rain and cool air for much of the East (CNN) — The car that 4-year-old Maleah Davis’ stepfather was driving the night she went missing has been found, police said. The vehicle, a silver Nissan Altima, was found Thursday morning in the parking of a shopping mall in Missouri City, Texas, just outside of Sugar Land. Maleah was not in the car, said Tim Miller, the director of Texas EquuSearch, a search and rescue organization. An employee of a taxi cab company spotted the car in the parking lot and called police. Ken Fregia, a homicide detective with the Houston Police Department, said the car’s condition appears normal, there’s no visible blood or obvious signs that something may have happened inside. The vehicle will be taken to the Houston Police Department for further forensic tests while detectives look for surveillance video from the shopping mall and nearby Walmart store. Maleah’s stepfather, Darion Vence, reported on Saturday that he was on the way to the airport with Maleah and his 1-year-old son to pick up Maleah’s mother from the airport. On the way, he pulled over to investigate a “popping noise,” he told police, and was knocked unconscious by three strangers who pulled up in a blue pickup truck. When he woke up a day later, Maleah was gone. The location the car was found is about 4-5 miles away from where Vence said he woke up. Police had been searching for the car and their only lead had been an image captured by a traffic camera that showed the Altima driving through an intersection in Sugar Land just before 3 p.m. on Saturday, several hours before Vence said he woke up and discovered Maleah was missing. Houston Police Dept This image captures the Nissan Altima on Saturday, during the time Vence said he was in and out of consciousness. Detectives have not heard from Vence in several days. Fregia said they have been attempting to contact Vence to have him meet with an artist who will draw a sketch of the suspects. “You would think if a loved one was missing that you would be coming forward” he said. CNN is attempting to reach Vence for comment. No one has been arrested or charged in the girl’s disappearance. Maleah’s father looking for answers Among those looking for answers in Maleah’s disappearance is her father, who wants Vence to tell him directly what happened the night she went missing. “I’m not putting the blame on anybody,” Craig Davis told CNN affiliate KTRK. “I just need the questions that aren’t answered to be answered. There are so many unanswered questions. It’s not for the public to answer to them for me. It’s not for the police to answer them for me. It’s not for the news to answer them for me. It’s for Darion to answer for me.” Houston police are leading the investigation, but Doug Adolph, a spokesman for police in Sugar Land, Texas, said that Vence’s story changed multiple times. “His story did not add up,” Adolph told CNN Wednesday, without elaborating. Asked for clarification Thursday, Adolph said he couldn’t go into specifics, but “the substantive details of what he described to us changed.”<doc-sep>A car reported stolen during the abduction of a 4-year-old Houston girl has been found, police said Thursday — as the toddler’s mother collapsed outside the cops’ press conference and screamed for her daughter’s return. “Where’s Maleah?” mom Brittany Bowens wailed, according to KHOU. “Where is my baby?” During the presser, police said that an employee for a cab company in Missouri City, Texas, spotted the gray Nissan Altima and notified local police, who then contacted Houston investigators. The car was unlocked and didn’t show any “obvious signs” of anything unusual, Houston homicide Det. Kenneth Fregia told reporters, just feet away from the vehicle. “The car was unlocked when we got here,” Fregia said. “The car looks normal. There’s no obvious signs of anything [that] happened in the car.” The vehicle will be processed for evidence, Fregia said. KHOU also reported Thursday that Bowens and her daughter’s stepfather, Derion Vence, were barred from any contact with their son or Bowens’ other children. In an emergency hearing held Wednesday, a local court ruled that Maleah’s younger half-brother will stay with his paternal grandmother, while Maleah’s older brother is now in the custody of his paternal aunt. That woman would also be granted custody of Maleah if the girl is found, the station reported. Fregia said investigators want to talk to Vence, whom they’ve not been able to contact for several days. Vence had claimed that he, Maleah and his 1-year-old son were abducted by three Hispanic men during a carjacking in Houston on Friday. Vence told police he and his son were later dropped off on the side of a freeway in southwest Houston, near Sugar Land. Maleah was last seen wearing a light-blue jacket, blue jeans and pink and white sneakers, according to an Amber Alert that was issued Sunday and remains active. Fregia stopped short of naming Vence as a person of interest in the girl’s disappearance, but said police would like him to contact investigators so he can possibly produce a sketch of the suspects he described to police. “But we have not been able to coordinate that with him yet and he has not come in,” Fregia told reporters. Detectives are working to obtain surveillance video from businesses near where the Altima was found. Fregia said nothing remarkable was spotted at first glance inside the vehicle, which contained clothing, papers and a child seat. “It may not take us anywhere, it may take us right where we need to go,” Fregia said of scouring the vehicle for clues. Fregia had no update on the condition of Maleah’s 1-year-old brother. A report Tuesday indicated that the girl had been recently returned to her home after being removed in August by child welfare workers in Houston. The agency was probing allegations of physical abuse related to a brain injury that required surgery in April 2019.<doc-sep>Vence told police one of the three men had knocked him out and that he’d woken up a day later on the side of the road with his 1-year-old son. A motorist drove them to the hospital, where he called police.<doc-sep>A 4-year-old Houston girl is still missing, but the car that her stepfather says she was abducted from last week has turned up in a suburban parking lot near Houston. Maleah Davis has been missing since last Friday when her stepfather says men in a pickup truck knocked him out. They abducted him, Maleah and his young son, but ultimately let him and the boy go while keeping the young girl, he told police. The family's gray Nissan Altima was found Thursday in a Missouri City, Texas, parking lot outside Houston, police say. A woman spotted the vehicle and called police. The car was unlocked and appeared undamaged, but investigators would go over it "with a fine-toothed comb," said Houston police Detective Kenneth Fregia. Maleah's mother, Brittany Bowens, was at the parking lot Thursday as authorities conducted a search. "Where is Maleah? Where is my baby?" she yelled out, according to Houston's KTRK-TV. More:Intensive search underway for girl, 4, whose stepfather says she was abducted on a Texas highway Darion Vence, Maleah's stepfather, told police he was driving to Bush Intercontinental Airport with Maleah and his son on Friday night to pick up Maleah's mother when he thought he had a flat tire, pulled over and got out. He said a truck pulled up behind him and men got out, Houston police Sgt. Mark Holbrook said Sunday. "One makes a comment saying your daughter looks very nice, looks very sweet," Holbrook said. Vence told authorities another man hit him in the head. The next 24 hours were hazy for Vence, he told investigators, as he was in and out of consciousness. On Saturday evening, he and his son woke up on the side of the road and then walked to the hospital, he told police. However, Fregia said Thursday the car's tires appeared to be fine and that they were searching for security footage to determine how the car arrived in the lot. The car had been last seen driving through an intersection in Sugar Land Saturday afternoon, Holbrook said. Holbrook said originally Vence is not a suspect in Maleah's disappearance. On Wednesday, Sugar Land police said Vence's story "did change several times and some of what he told us just didn't add up." Fregia said police haven't spoken with him since Saturday and would like to again, but they aren't concerned about his whereabouts. Child Protective Services said it had been in contact with the family for months. In August, Maleah and her brothers were removed from the home after Maleah suffered a head injury. The girl needed multiple brain surgeries, Child Protective Services spokesperson Tiffani Butler said. In February, the children returned to the home but were officially still in state custody and had monthly check-ins from a caseworker, Butler added. Contributing: John Bacon, USA TODAY; The Associated Press. Follow USA TODAY's Ryan Miller on Twitter @RyanW_Miller.<doc-sep>
Police in Texas say they have located the car used by the former fiance of missing 4-year-old Maleah Davis' mother on the day he claims the little girl was kidnapped by three men who assaulted him and knocked him unconscious. The car, a silver 2011 Nissan Altima, was located Thursday morning in Missouri City, Texas, close to where Derion Vence, 26, said he regained consciousness and discovered the girl had vanished. He told police he regained consciousness on the side of a road, more than 21 hours after he said the perpetrators took Maleah and the car, according to the Houston Police Department. Vence told police his 2-year-old son, who had also been in the car, was sitting next to him and was unharmed. The Nissan was spotted Thursday morning parked in the middle of a shopping mall parking lot in Missouri City, according to police. A taxi driver noticed the car from news reports and called the police, said Det. Ken Fregia, of the Houston Police Department Homicide Division. Fregia said the car was unlocked and that a child's car seat was inside, but investigators found no evidence of foul play in the vehicle or in its trunk. "The car looks fine. Everything looks normal on the car," Fregia told reporters at the scene. Officers are conducting a search of the vehicle and planned to tow the car to a facility where they can do a more detailed search, Fregia said. He said investigators also plan to comb through surveillance camera footage from the mall to see if there is a video of whoever left the car in the parking lot. Maleah's mother, Brittany Bowens, who has been part of a group of volunteers passing out fliers and searching for the missing girl, broke down in tears and collapsed after going to the mall and seeing investigators searching the car, which is registered to her. "Where is Maleah? Where is my baby?" Bowens tearfully yelled before falling to the ground on her knees, ABC station KTRK-TV in Houston reported. Maleah has been missing since Friday night and police have not identified any suspects in her disappearance. A court order issued this week showed that Vence and Bowens has have been banned from having any contact with the toddler they have together and Maleah, according to ABC affiliate station KVUE-TV in Austin. State Child Protective Service opened an investigation of the couple last August after Maleah hurt her head and had to undergo brain surgery, officials said. The children were temporarily placed in the custody of relatives but were returned to Bowens and Vence in February, according to CPS records obtained by KVUE. Vence told police he was driving with the children to pick up Bowens about 9 p.m. Friday at George Bush Intercontinental Airport, where Bowens was returning from a trip to Massachusetts when he noticed something wrong with their car and pulled over in north Houston, police said. "He hears a popping noise like he has a flat tire, pulls over to check on it," Sgt. Mark Holbrook of the Houston Police Department Homicide Division said at a news conference on Sunday. Vence told police that when he got out to check the car, a blue pickup truck pulled up behind him and two men approached him. One of the men, according to what Vence told police, made a comment that "Maleah looks very nice, looks very sweet," according to Holbrook. The other male hit Vence in the head, knocking him out, Holbrook said. Vence told police that he kept going in and out of consciousness, but at one point he was in the back of the suspects' truck with his son and Maleah and that there were now three suspects in the vehicle driving them around, Holbrook said. He said the next time Vence woke up, about 6 p.m. on Saturday, he was on the side of the Southwest Freeway near State Highway 6 in Sugar Land, some 22 miles southwest of Houston. "He wakes up. He has his son ... with him. He begins walking around. He tries to summon help. Nobody's really helping him," Holbrook said, recounting Vence's account. He said Vence told police that he walked with his son to Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital, arriving about 10 or 11 p.m. He was treated for a head injury and police were called. Frejia said police have been unable to locate Vence in the past few days but would like to interview him again.