Detectives ID Body Found On I-95 As Mother Of 3-Year-Old Killed In Baltimore House Fire, Police Say
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- Authorities on Thursday positively identified a woman found dead along Interstate 95 as the biological mother of a 3-year-old girl who was killed last week in a Baltimore house fire.
Danielle Shanae Parnell was found dead Tuesday along a stretch of I-95 in Cecil County, Maryland State Police said. Police said the 30-year-old is the mother of My'royal Bennett, who died April 9 in a mattress fire in southwest Baltimore.
Bennett was found dead inside a home on Vancouver Road about 6 p.m. April 9 after firefighters responded to a mattress fire at the residence. Her death has been ruled a homicide.
Four days later, her mother's body was found by a member of survey crew near the woods along northbound I-95 near Belvedere Road in Cecil County, police said. No cause or manner of death has been released.
State police homicide detectives are working with city police to determine whether there are any connections between Parnell's and Bennett's deaths, according to the preliminary details provided by MSP.
No details about a possible suspect or motive in the girl's and mother's deaths were immediately released.
City police on Thursday released the identity of Bennett, whose death is being investigated as a homicide. Even though she was found dead at the scene of the Vancouver Road mattress fire, the cause of death has not been revealed.
Arson investigators are working to find out how the fire got started.
Several neighbors told WJZ a moving truck could be seen outside the young girl's home in the days leading up to the April 9 fire.
"(Parnell) was a single mom with two kids, but I thought she had moved, so I don't know," one neighbor said. "She had just stopped working out at the airport and she was looking for another job."
Parnell's second child, a 7-year-old, has been placed in the custody of Child Protective Services, city police confirmed to WJZ.
WJZ reporter Rachel Menitoff contributed to this report.
