Hearing For Man Accused Of Stashing Daughter's Body In Sacramento Rental Unit

RENO, Nev. (AP) - A bail hearing was scheduled Thursday for a Nevada man facing a murder charge after police say he drove his 5-year-old daughter's emaciated corpse to California and stashed it in a storage unit in May.

Police say 24-year-old Tyler Anderson's malnourished daughter, Cali, was dead in an unkempt Reno apartment for a week before he rented a truck, placed the child's body in a duffel bag inside a blue plastic drum and then left it in the rental unit in Sacramento 130 miles (209 kilometers) away.

Anderson and his wife, Averyauna, 23, have been charged with open murder, child neglect and destroying or concealing evidence. They've been held in the Washoe County Jail on $50,000 bond since their arrest in May.

Averyauna Anderson is not the biological mother of the victim, but police have said she and Tyler Anderson lived together in the Reno apartment with two other children.

Police say the couple left Cali's remains in a friend's storage unit on May 11. The unit's owner became suspicious about the boxes they left behind and called Sacramento police a few days later.

Reno Det. Jeffrey Boyd said in an affidavit that Averyauna Anderson agreed to speak with investigators when they visited the couple's apartment with a search warrant May 16. Boyd said officers found a wire animal crate in the bathroom with handcuffs attached to it.

Averyauna Anderson told police the girl was experiencing health problems, had lost considerable weight, had trouble digesting food and had been vomiting, but they never took her for medical treatment.

She told police that around May 4, the girl was immobile and unresponsive with what appeared to be a weak pulse and shallow breathing. She said the couple took turns performing CPR, and later placed Cali in cold water in the shower to try to wake her, the affidavit said.

When they realized she was dead, they changed her clothes and put the body into a duffel bag, where it remained for about a week, she said.

Averyauna Anderson told police her husband researched how to dispose of dead bodies before they rented a U-Haul on May 10, put duffel bag with the body inside a plastic drum and sealed it in a cardboard box.

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press.