Samuel Olson: Body of missing child found as police question story of disappearance in family’s TV appeal

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The body of a missing six-year-old Houston boy has been found in a Jasper motel, the police said on Tuesday.

Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said that the body is believed to be that of six-year-old Samuel Olson, who was reported missing from southwest Houston last week.

Tonya Olson, the grandmother of Samuel, had issued a tearful appeal to the public begging for help in finding the boy earlier on the day his body was found .

Finner tweeted that they have a possible suspect in custody. He said: “A possible suspect is in custody and will be interviewed by our homicide investigators.”

The child’s body was found at the Best Western Inn in the 200 block of West Gibson Street shortly before 6.00am on Tuesday evening, Kjas News reported.

The family says that the boy turned six on Saturday.

Jasper Police Chief Gerald Hall told the media that the body was found in a tote bag, in a room on the west side of the motel complex. Mr Hall said that it appeared that the body had been there for some time.

Samuel Olson, a resident of Cy-Fair Area in northwest Houston, was reported missing by family members on 27 May, but police said there was conflicting information about the last time he was seen. He last attended school as far back as 30 April.

The Houston police on Tuesday said that the boy’s parents shared joint custody.

In her appeal, Ms Olson, Samuel’s grandmother, told the local media that she “saw and held Sam for the last time on 2 May while he and his cousins visited her house.” She said that she spoke with Samuel almost a week and a half ago.

On Monday, Houston police searched the apartment rented by an acquaintance of Samuel’s father’s girlfriend in Gateway at Ellington in Houston, according to Texas’s 12 News Now. They had received information that this is where Samuel had been last seen.

On Tuesday night, Ms Olson told the media: “We’re all just really confused about everything that is going on at the moment.”

ABC 13 reported that the child’s father’s girlfriend Theresa Balboa reported seeing the child last Thursday morning in the 8800 block of McAvoy Drive in southwest Houston. She said: “I was going to take Sam to school when his mother showed up with the police officer, or who I was under the impression to be a police officer, and they demanded me to release Sam.”

Ms Balboa told the police that she handed the boy to his mother. But police investigators have been unable to verify that so far, and are working on the possibility that Samuel might have gone missing weeks ago.

The attorney for Samuel’s mother, Sarah Olson, said she had not seen her son in almost a year.

Marco Gonzalez told KTRK-TV: “Our client has primary custody, but our client has been denied access for the child for many months. Our client has not had any access to young Samuel in many, many months.”

Mr Gonzalez also rejected the claim by Ms Balboa that Ms Olson had taken him from her, saying “that is completely untrue”.