On January 10, a five-year-old girl was seen by a postal service worker, wandering in the streets of Cyril, Oklahoma, alone.
The postman called 911, and when the police could not find the five-year-old’s sister, Athena Brownfield, they arrested Ivon Adams, 35, and his wife, Alysia Adams, 35, and charged them with child neglect.
On Tuesday, January 17, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigations announced that they had recovered a child’s remains.
Adams was charged with first-degree murder and child neglect for beating Athena to death and burying her in a home he and his wife previously lived in.
Alysia Adams confessed during an interview on Thursday, January 12, that her husband, Ivon, had killed Athena a couple of weeks before she was reported missing. She told officers that on the night of December 25, 2022, at around midnight, her husband mercilessly beat Athena to death at their home in Cyril.
Adams took the child’s body and left home and told his wife he buried the girl at an old residence in Rush Springs, Oklahoma. He placed a broken branch over the burial site.
Ivon Adams then fled to Arizona. He was arrested on Thursday, January 12, after his wife confessed.
Ivon Adams faces first-degree murder and child neglect.
Alysia Adams is charged with two counts of child neglect for failing to care for the children and failing to protect Athena from abuse.
Court documents reveal that the children’s biological mother left the two girls in the care of the Adams couple about two years prior to the murder. They never took the children to the pediatrician for medical checkups and didn’t enroll the girls in school.