OKLAHOMA CITY — A man charged in the Christmas Day beating death of a 4-year-old Oklahoma girl has been returned to the state.
Ivon Adams III, 36, was booked into the county jail Thursday night, the Caddo County Sheriff’s Office said on its website.
Adams was arrested last week in Arizona on murder and child neglect charges in the death of Athena Brownfield in the town of Cyril, about 70 miles (113 kilometers) southwest of Oklahoma City.
The girl was reported missing Jan. 10 when a postal carrier found her 5-year-old sister alone outside the home where she lived with Adams and his wife, Alysia Adams. Alysia Adams, 31, is charged with two counts of child neglect in the case.
Court documents do not list an attorney who could speak on Adams' behalf.
A gag order has been issued in the case against Alysia Adams at the request of her court-appointed attorney.
An affadavit for Ivon Adams' arrest alleges he beat the girl to death the night of Dec. 25 and later buried her on property he and his wife once owned near the nearby town of Rush Springs, where authorities found a child's body on Tuesday.
The child's body has not been identified and was sent to the state medical examiner's office for identification and to determine the cause of death.
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How big is Maricopa County?
Maricopa County is the United States’ 4th largest county in terms of population with 4,485,414 people, according to the 2020 Census.
The county contains around 63% of Arizona’s population and is 9,224 square miles. That makes the county larger than seven U.S. states (Rhode Island, Delaware, Connecticut, Hawaii, New Jersey, Massachusetts and New Hampshire).
One of the largest park systems in the nation is also located in Maricopa County. The county has an estimated 120,000 acres of open space parks that includes hundreds of miles of trails, nature centers and campgrounds.
The county’s seat is located in Phoenix, which is also the state capital and the census-designated 5th most populous city in the United States.