MOTIVE?

Mom Who Killed and Dumped 7-Year-Old Son Wanted ‘New Life,’ Police Say

She was with a man she had met only days earlier when she was arrested for her son’s death.

The mom accused of murdering her 7-year-old son and dumping him in the forest in Las Vegas “was intending on starting a new life,” the top detective on the case says. And it appears Samantha Moreno Rodriguez, 35, was carrying through on that when she was arrested at a Colorado hotel with a man she had met only days earlier. “She was dressed up and had makeup,” Las Vegas Metro Homicide Lt. Ray Spencer told KLAS. Moreno Rodriguez left her home in San Jose in late May with her son, Liam Husted. His naked body was found behind a bush in Nevada, with signs he had been dragged there. It took days for police to identify him—he was nicknamed Little Zion in the meantime—and then track down his mother, who is being extradited back to Nevada.