Woman charged with capital murder of boyfriend's 5-year-old son in the trashcan of her motel room
Friday, July 9, 2021
Theresa Raye Balboa, 29, was charged Thursday in Harris County with capital murder of a child under 10, according to court records. She is accused of killing the boy on May 12 by striking him with and against a blunt object, records show, according to Daily mail.
The Harris County District Attorney's Office had initially charged the 29-year-old with tampering with evidence after Samuel Olson's body was found in her Best Western motel room, in Jasper, Texas, on June 1. The autopsy report found Samuel died from 'homicidal violence with blunt head trauma.'
On Thursday, Balboa, who has been in custody since her June 1 arrest, was charged in Harris County with capital murder of a child under 10, according to court records.
The charges came after investigators recovered an unspecified weapon that suspected had been used to kill Olson.
The remains of the little boy are thought to have been kept hidden for around two weeks after he died, including in a bathtub, before Balboa reported him missing.
She was arrested after a tip-off to cops when she was allegedly seen carrying a foul-smelling plastic bin containing the child's corpse into the room.
Samuel had been living with Balboa since April 30 - the last day he attended school.
According to the court documents, Balboa killed Samuel on May 12, then reported him missing more than two weeks later on May 27. Samuel would have turned six on May 29.
Balboa's roommate, Benjamin Rivera, and friend Dylan Walker, have also been charged with evidence tampering counts in relation to the boy's death.
Samuel was last seen alive by his paternal grandmother, Tonya Olson, who says she spent the weekend with him on May 8, and was reported missing by Balboa on May 27.
According to court documents submitted on June 3, Balboa allegedly told Rivera, that Samuel was dead two weeks before she reported him missing, according to ABC13.
Rivera reportedly told police says that upon returning to their apartment from work, he found the boy on the bed, bruised and unresponsive.
Balboa and Rivera then allegedly moved the body to their bathtub, where they left it for two days.
On May 13, Rivera says he purchased duct tape and a plastic bin from Walmart. He then wrapped up the boy and placed him in the bin before he and Balboa moved him to a storage facility in Webster, Texas, according to court documents.
Police were led to Balboa after she reportedly called Walker, on May 17, and asked him to pick her up at a Walmart parking lot in Cleveland, and the two drove nearly 70 miles south to retrieve the bin at the storage facility.
They then reportedly drove another 160 miles northeast to the Best Western in Jasper.
Meanwhile, it emerged early on into the investigation that Balboa previously lost custody over her two young daughters in 2019 over claims she was a bad mom.
Court records obtained by Click2Houston revealed that the girls - now aged six and eight - were removed from their mom's care after she failed to show up to court for a custody hearing.
Balboa remains behind bars on a $600,000 bond as she awaits her next court appearance, which is already scheduled for next Monday.
Prosecutors said Balboa was on her way to Louisiana when she was arrested in Jasper.
Balboa's next-door neighbor Tiffany Schultz, 25, has told police she heard loud scratches from the apartment a day after the boy is believed to have died.
Schultz, 25, along with her fiancé and newborn son had moved into their new apartment in Webster on May 11 - the day after next-door neighbor Balboa allegedly told her roommate that Samuel Olson, 5, had died, according to court documents.
'The second day we were here, it was probably about 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning, we heard loud scratching noises, really, really loud,' she told The Sun. 'It lasted for a good ten or fifteen minutes.'
Her fiancé, she said, started banging on the wall to make the noises stop.
'I've heard loud scratching from animals before and it wasn't that, I don't believe they had animals,' Schultz recalled. 'We didn't hear any other noises, it was strange.'