A view of Mount San Bernardino. The remains of Derrick Burton were found in rural Mentone, Calif., near here. Mark Ramsperger/Getty Images/iStockphoto
A 4-year-old boy whose remains were finally identified last week was reported missing by his mother, who believed he had been kidnapped and taken overseas, police confirmed to SFGATE on Thursday.
In March 1992, the San Bernardino Sun reported that a boy named Derrick Burton was taken from his home in late 1990. According to the boy’s mother, who then went by Patricia Abdul-Hameen, she “last saw her toddler in a North E Street apartment in San Bernardino when she walked out after an argument with her husband. When she returned the next day, Derrick was gone.”
Five months later, authorities arrested Ismael Abdul-Hameen, Patricia’s husband, on suspicion of felony child stealing. Patricia told a judge that Abdul-Hameen “said that [Derrick] wouldn’t behave, said he was hard headed or something” and had possibly sent the boy to be raised as a Muslim in Amman, Jordan.
Abdul-Hameen pleaded guilty to the charges and was sentenced to three years in prison.
A spokesperson from the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Office confirmed to SFGATE that the child abducted by Abdul-Hameen is the boy whose remains were recently identified. When asked if Abdul-Hameen is a person of interest in Derrick’s death, the spokesperson declined to comment further “as the investigation is ongoing.”
Derrick’s skull was found in 1991 by a man hunting quail in a rural area of Mentone, a small town 60 miles east of Los Angeles, the sheriff’s office said. Investigators searched the scene and did not locate any other remains; they did find “a torn plastic trash bag with decomposition odor and child’s clothing” and kept it as evidence, the sheriff’s office said. The remains were not identified and the investigation turned up no leads for decades.
In February, a DNA sequencing lab that worked with the sheriff’s office found a match for living relatives. Last week, the sheriff’s office announced the remains were formally identified as Derrick Burton. It is not clear why Derrick’s identity was not confirmed sooner given the fact police knew he went missing around the time the remains were found.
Anyone with information is asked to contact the sheriff’s office cold case team at 909-890-4904.
SFGATE news editor Amy Graff contributed to this report.