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The family members of a two-year-old boy who was found inside the mouth of an alligator in Florida soon after his mother’s death, have broken their silence since the twin tragedies.<\/p>\n
Police officers opened fire last week on an alligator to reclaim the body of toddler Taylen Mosley, who had been missing since the discovery of his mother\u2019s body the previous day.<\/p>\n
An officer found an alligator with the missing child in its mouth near the Dell Holmes Park in St Petersburg on Friday. The officer fired their weapon at the reptile which then dropped the boy\u2019s body. However, by then the boy had succumbed to his injuries.<\/p>\n
The boy’s mother Pashun Jeffery was found dead in her apartment on 30 March with multiple stab wounds.<\/p>\n
Theo Brickhouse-Sails, who is the great-aunt of Jeffery, said she felt something was wrong when the calls ended up in voicemail.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd nobody answered. And just kept going to voicemail, and my gut told me something was wrong,\u201d she told WFLA.<\/p>\n
Ms Brickhouse-Sails drove to St Petersburg and knocked on her great-niece’s door, only to find a trail of blood leading from the door to the car outside.<\/p>\n
“I would have never, in a million years, when this week started, ever thought that something like this would happen,\u201d she said. “We were supposed to have taken Taylen Saturday.”<\/p>\n
Ms Brickhouse-Sails said she wants people to remember the mother and son as “two kids who absolutely loved each other”.<\/p>\n
\u201cAdjusting without them in life is going to be hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
Taylen’s father, Thomas Mosley, was arrested on Friday night on two charges of first-degree murder in connection with the deaths of the boy and his mother.<\/p>\n
\u201cDue to the extremely serious allegations surrounding these tragic losses, our investigation is currently focused on gathering information about the facts and circumstances of the case, as well as our client\u2019s mental state,\u201d a spokesperson for Sixth Judicial Circuit public defender Sara Mollo said.<\/p>\n
Mr Mosley, 21, allegedly \u201cdid throw or place\u201d his son into a lake, inflicting \u201cmortal wounds\u201d that caused the child\u2019s death, according to the affidavit.<\/p>\n
Ms Brickhouse-Sails said the family is reportedly trying to move forward now, and appreciate all the love they have received from people. \u201cI feel like the community has wrapped their arms around us,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sign up to our free US news bulletin sent straight to your inbox each weekday morningSign up to our free morning US email news bulletin The family members of a two-year-old boy who was found inside the mouth of an alligator in Florida soon after his mother’s death, have broken their silence since the twin […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1878,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n