TWO-DECADE MYSTERY

Mom Busted in Death of Boy Found Near Cemetery in 1999

A tipster led police to the child’s identity and the suspect.

A child found dead near a Georgia cemetery in 1999 has finally been identified—and police have arrested his mother. A tip called into the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children was the lead police needed to break open the cold case, authorities announced Wednesday. Teresa Ann Bailey Black, 45, was arrested in Phoenix and charged with murdering William DaShawn Hamilton, age 6. The tipster said she recognized an artist’s rendering of the boy and remembered that his mother left their hometown of Charlotte with him two decades ago and later returned without him. “William was going to grow up to be somebody,” she said in a statement released by law enforcement. “I so wanted him to be alive. I wanted William to know that I never stopped looking for him. I loved William.”