HOUSTON — The Maleah Davis case is eerily similar to another one mentioned by Quanell X and Tim Miller Friday.
In the summer of 2008, 7-year-old Randy Sylvester Jr. and 3-year-old Denim Sylvester were reported missing from their Pasadena apartment complex.
Hundreds of Equusearch volunteers spent long, hot days looking for the children.
Their father, Randy Sylvester Sr., told investigators the children were kidnapped by two men.
They didn’t believe him, but there wasn’t enough evidence to charge Sylvester in connection with his children's disappearance.
At one point, he told detectives they'd find Randy and Denim in a pond. They drained the entire pond but found nothing.
Then a week after the children vanished, Quanell convinced Sylvester to tell him where their bodies really were.
Based on Quanell's tip, investigators found the partially-burned children packed in a wooden chest inside a suitcase that was left in a wooded area of southeast Houston.
Sylvester was arrested and charged with capital murder in the case.
During his 2010 trial, testimony showed a neighbor had seen Sylvester leaving the apartment with a wooden chest. Police testified that Sylvester cleaned up the apartment to hide evidence.
Sylvester pleaded guilty was sentenced to life in prison.
“Many men have confessed these types of crime to me, and involving children,” Quanell said. “And the confession has always proven to be true.”
Texas Equusearch founder Tim Miller has worked with Quanell on other missing persons cases.
“Everybody may not agree with all his methods,” Miller said. “But he’s brought closure to many families, he’s gotten stuff out of perpetrators that nobody else has been able to get.”
And now, there’s finally hope for closure in the case of Maleah Davis.
TIMELINE: Maleah Davis case