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Police say at a preliminary stage of their investigation, human remains found near a softball field in Smyrna are believed to be those of a young child, less than 10 years old.

Cpl. Brian Donner of the Smyrna Police Department said Saturday afternoon in a news release that investigators remained at the scene.

Police responded to the area of Little Lass Fields, which serve as softball fields for Little League girls in the area, on Duck Creek Parkway around 4:30 p.m. Friday, police said. The fields are across the road from Smyrna Middle School.
 
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Right now a family awaits grim news that will shatter them.
A world spins madly on as they hold their breath.
Every September will be a season of dread from here on out.

This should never ever transpire.
Crimes against adults fine...I guess.
Just leave children innocent.
 
Police have identified the victim in a case where human remains were discovered. Authorities said Thursday 3-year-old Emma Cole was found on Sept. 13, 2019, at Little Lass Fields.


Police said Tuesday the persons of interest were in custody in another state. Authorities also identified the persons of interest as 28-year-old Kristie Haas and 38-year-old Brandon Haas.

Authorities have not yet released any other information about the persons of interest.
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Police on Thursday revealed they made a major breakthrough in the case, identifying the victim for the first time as Emma Cole. A dog walker stumbled across her body in 2019 at Little Lass Fields, located across the street from Smyrna Middle School.

The discovery sparked an investigation that has culminated in the arrests of Brandon Hass and his 38-year-old wife, Kristie Haas. According to Indiana court records cited by Delaware Online, Emma was Kristie’s daughter, but officers have not confirmed their connection.

Delaware police have identified the young girl whose remains were found in a softball field in Delaware in 2019 as 3-year-old Emma Cole.

Authorities in a statement confirmed they’d detained out-of-state persons of interest in “the case involving the human remains discovered at the Little Lass fields in September 2019."

Detectives said Emma had been dead for “several weeks or possibly longer” by the time she was found.

The couple who married in 2017, were charged in Pennsylvania with “arrest without prior requisition,” which allows for law enforcement to take someone into custody for charges in another state.

When Emma’s remains were discovered nearly 13 months ago, Brandon and Kristie were residing in Smyrna, just more than a mile away from the Little Lass softball complex.

A Pennsylvania judge set their bond at $1 million, though it was not immediately clear if charges have been filed against the Haases in Delaware.

... article in full

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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crim...ware-softball-field/ar-BB19TNg8?ocid=msedgntp
 
Kristie Haas is the girl’s mother, according to the Delaware News Journal.

Bail for each had been set at $1 million, the newspaper reported. Records show Brandon Haas had been released as of Monday.

Kristie Haas remained in custody, the records indicated.

The police investigation “revealed that the child was female, Caucasian or Hispanic, and likely between the ages of 2 and 5 years old,” authorities said last November, when the images were first released. “The child had slightly wavy brown hair. An anthropological exam of her remains suggests that she suffered from chronic illness(es).”

The nature of those illnesses was unclear. The child’s cause of death has not been released.

Indiana court records show a battle in 2016 and 2017 over custody of Emma. In September 2016, she was placed in the custody of a family member, Tanya Rene Stroud.
On Friday, Stroud posted a photo of herself with Emma on her Facebook page.

“I love you so much, Emma Grace,” Stroud wrote. “I promise you, we will get justice for you, baby girl.”
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Authorities said there had been evidence of a possible fire where she was found, but the circumstances of her death remain under investigation.
It's not yet clear where the couple resided in Pennsylvania, but records show Kristie Haas had a home remodeling business, "KBHAAS DESIGNS," registered in Glen Mills, Delaware County, as of August 2020.
It's unclear whether the girl ever was reported missing.
 
The mother and stepfather of Emma Cole, a 3-year-old girl whose remains were found near the Smyrna-Clayton Little Lass softball field in Smyrna in September 2019, have been indicted. The Delaware Attorney General announced Tuesday 39-year-old Brandon Haas and 28-year-old Kristie Haas were indicted on child abuse and endangering the welfare of a child charges. The two were indicted on Monday.

Kristie Haas was also indicted on charges including second-degree assault, abusing a corpse, and reckless burning.

“The road ahead is still long, but this indictment is a major step toward justice for Emma,” Attorney General Kathy Jennings said. “No crime is more heinous, more offensive to all we hold dear, than the abuse of a child; and in a community as tight-knit as Smyrna, I know how deeply shocking and disturbing this case has been. Nothing we can do will bring Emma back, but we owe it to her, to her community, and to every child in this state to hold the defendants accountable for their actions.”
Officials said the indictments allege that Emma was the victim of child abuse before her death.

According to officials, both Haases allegedly deprived the little girl of food and medical attention and subjected her and her siblings to “excessive forced exercise and inappropriate physical discipline.”

The two could face additional charges as the Delaware Department of Justice continues to investigate.
 
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A woman in Smyrna, Delaware faces new charges in the death of her 3-year-old daughter, who was found dead at a softball field in 2019. The state’s attorney general announced Tuesday that Kristie Haas, 28, now faces two counts of murder by abuse or neglect in the first degree as part of a superseding indictment in the death of Emma Cole.

“Emma Grace had a full life left to live and that life was taken,” said Rachel Byrd, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Baltimore Field Office. “At just three years old she was taken from her friends, her loved ones and her sisters and brother. When the most vulnerable of our citizens – our children – are victimized we will do everything in our power to hold the perpetrators accountable and to protect others from harm.”

Haas and husband Brandon Haas, 39, were previously indicted in April on charges including first-degree child abuse and endangering the welfare of a child. Authorities said the couple abused and neglected Emma. Investigators said they deprived her of food and necessary medical attention, made her and her siblings do excessive exercise, and subjected them to “inappropriate physical discipline.”

“While Brandon and Kristie Haas’ initial arrests provided some relief, we knew that the mission was not complete until we were able to bring a homicide charge in this case,” said Lt. Brian Donner of the Smyrna Police Department in a statement on Tuesday. “Today culminates all that hard work and investigation. On behalf of Chief Torrie James and the members of the Smyrna Police Department, we would like to thank the Attorney General’s office for staying the course with us and seeing this case through. We would like to thank the Federal Bureau of Investigation for their expertise and resources that made these charges possible. Finally, we all owe lead investigator William Davis of the Smyrna Police Department our thanks for his tenacity and hard work throughout the course of this investigation.”

Brandon Haas, who Emma’s stepfather, was recently locked up again after allegedly violating the condition of his bond. Kristie Haas is still in jail and pleaded not guilty to the first indictment on Thursday.
 
A Delaware woman is facing decades in prison after pleading guilty to killing her 3-year-old daughter and dumping her burned remains on a softball field.

Kristie Haas, 31, pleaded guilty Thursday to murder by abuse or neglect, abuse of a corpse, and three counts of endangering the welfare of a child. Prosecutors are recommending a sentence of 50 years in prison on the murder charge, suspended for non-custodial supervision after 30 years behind bars. The murder charge carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. Prosecutors are recommending probation for the other counts and will drop several other felony and misdemeanor charges.

“Yes, your honor,” Haas repeatedly intoned softly as Superior Court Judge Noel Primos asked whether she understood the nature of the charges and the consequences of entering a guilty plea.

At the request of attorneys, Primos, who is not bound by the sentencing recommendation, deferred sentencing until July 10, the date on which a trial for Haas was to begin.

Prosecutor Kevin Smith said the delay will allow time for relatives of the victim, Emma Grace Cole, to make arrangements to travel from out of state to attend the sentencing.

Attorneys, in the meantime, will prepare sentencing memoranda. Smith said prosecutors are recommending a mental health evaluation of Haas. Defense attorney Patrick Collins told the judge that Haas is already being treated for bipolar disorder and depression.

“She is current on her medications,” he said.

The defense and prosecution disagree on whether Haas should be barred from having any contact with her three other children, as recommended by prosecutors, or whether she should be allowed contact pursuant to court orders.

Collins declined to comment as he left the courtroom. The court entered a partial gag order in June 2021 restricting what attorneys could say about the case, which has drawn widespread media attention.

The child’s body was found in September 2019 by a person walking a dog through Smyrna-Clayton Little Lass Fields, a softball park near Smyrna Middle School in central Delaware. At the time, Emma lived with her parents and siblings less than a mile from the ball field. Authorities believe Emma had been dead for several weeks before her body was found.

Haas and her husband, Brandon Haas, who was the child’s stepfather, were arrested in Pennsylvania in October 2020, more than a year after the child’s body was found. Both were originally indicted on felony charges of child abuse, child endangerment and hindering prosecution involving Emma’s death, as well as misdemeanor child endangerment charges involving her siblings.

Kristie Haas also was charged with felony assault, abusing a corpse and reckless burning. The charges against her were later upgraded to include two counts of murder.

Authorities alleged that the couple withheld food and medical care from Emma and subjected her to “torture or maltreatment,” while also subjecting her and her siblings to excessive forced exercise and inappropriate physical discipline.
 
The mother and stepfather of Emma Grace Cole, the toddler whose charred remains were found in a Smyrna softball field nearly three years ago, “particularly targeted” the girl “for torture,” according to recently filed court documents ahead of the pair's sentencing.
The documents shed light on the child’s agonizing final year of life and detail how Emma Grace’s three living siblings were also “victims of child abuse and neglect” in ways not previously made public.

In addition to being subjected to physical punishment, including forced exercise and severe spankings, the children repeatedly watched as their sister was “singled out” by Kristie Cole Haas and Brandon Haas.
As a result, they continue to suffer from “deep psychological trauma” that may have long-term effects on their mental and behavioral health, a child abuse expert and Nemours Children’s Hospital doctor wrote in her assessment of the case.
This, the doctor said, will require “aggressive and ongoing mental health intervention to support their emotional recoveries.”
The sentencing memorandum and accompanying exhibits provide new insight into the abuse Emma Grace and her siblings suffered beginning as early as the summer of 2018, while also detailing Brandon Haas’ role in the torture.

Prior to the filing of the document, the toddler’s family was largely unaware of what the children went through and who was responsible for the majority of the abuse.
They had told Delaware Online/The News Journal they believed Kristie Haas was to blamefor much of it, given that only she was charged with murder. But they also believed Brandon Haas had abused the children and then helped cover up Emma Grace’s death.

Interviews that investigators conducted with Emma Grace’s siblings, Brandon and Kristie Haas and other family members – including Brandon Haas’ mother – confirm the family’s suspicions.
According to the documents, all four children were subjected to chores inappropriate for their ages, including the second-youngest, who was not even 5 years old at the time, being told to clean toilets, sweep the bathroom floor and vacuum the house.

If the chores were not done to Kristie or Brandon Haas’ satisfaction, or if the children misbehaved, Kristie Haas would “whoop all their asses," Brandon Haas told investigators. Kristie admitted that she would slap the children with a hockey puck or hit them with a spatula, but claimed that after being discharged from a drug rehabilitation program in early 2017, she “no longer hit her children with a belt.”
One of the children, however, told doctors that “before Emma went to the special place,” if the toddler was “being bad” – including crying or screaming, soiling herself or stealing food – Kristie Haas “would punish Emma, including spanking Emma with a belt.”

Emma Grace’s siblings, too, were spanked with a belt that sometimes “(left) a mark,” one child said, naming both Brandon and Kristie Haas as perpetrators.

They were also forced to do extra chores and “wall sits” – a leg exercise in which a person sits against the wall like they are in a chair but without support – and even had hot sauce or pepper, “or something else spicy,” put under their tongue by Brandon Haas if they misbehaved.

One of the children went into even further detail, "stating that once when she was crying after receiving vaccinations at the doctor's office, she got whooped and that (Brandon Haas) whooped all of her siblings,” wrote Dr. Stephanie Deutsch, medical director for Nemours Children's Hospital's Children at Risk Evaluation Program, in a letter to prosecutors.

“She described that (Brandon Haas) whooped her with wood, described as thick pieces of scrap wood that he had for his projects and made into paddles so he could hit her on the back,” the letter added.

‘Singled out for torture and abuse’​

Despite all four children being subjected to Kristie and Brandon’s abuse, prosecutors wrote in the sentencing memorandum that Emma Grace was “singled out for torture and abuse.”

Her siblings noted this too, with one telling doctors that she “was confused as to why KH would do this to Emma and not the rest of the siblings.”
She also said she “didn’t ever remember Emma being called to dinner and that KH would starve Emma.”

Through police interviews, prosecutors learned that “at various times,” Kristie Haas would give her youngest daughter only rice and oatmeal for meals.
The toddler’s sister said she would try to help Emma Grace by hiding food and taking it to the girl, as well as care for the girl at night “because sometimes Emma was not breathing” and she’d “need to keep Emma by her side to keep her warm.”

Yet she also detailed that some of Emma Grace’s worst torture came nightly when the then-3-year-old was forced to run while holding weights or pull a weighted sled down the basement staircase.
“She would be smacked, but was too young to run and couldn’t really do it,” one of Emma Grace’s siblings told a forensic interviewer. “If she stopped running, she would be hit with something … (including) a spatula, change purse, belt buckle and flip flops.”

The child also told the interviewer Emma had bruises on her face, stomach, and legs, stating "bruises were everywhere and provided an illustration.”
“Emma Cole was a victim of child torture,” Deutsch, the Nemours doctor, wrote.

She later added that the girl “was a targeted child compared to her siblings.”
Continue reading at link

 
The toddler’s sister said she would try to help Emma Grace by hiding food and taking it to the girl, as well as care for the girl at night “because sometimes Emma was not breathing” and she’d “need to keep Emma by her side to keep her warm.”

I hope that this sibling is getting unconditional love and support and is somewhere where she feels safe.
 
A Delaware woman who pleaded guilty to killing her 3-year-old daughter and dumping her burned remains on a softball field was sentenced Thursday to 30 years in prison.
Kristie Haas, 31, pleaded guilty this year to murder by abuse or neglect and abuse of a corpse in the death of Emma Grace Cole, who prosecutors say endured a life of starvation and torture before she was killed.
“I knew everything was wrong, and I was so messed up because of everything I did,” Haas told the judge, recalling the day she left her daughter’s corpse on a softball field in Smyrna. “I thought I could get away with it, to be honest.”
“I wasn’t OK then,” Haas added, recalling her drug abuse, mental health issues and relationship with Emma’s stepfather, Brandon Haas. “… I’m trying my best to be better than I was.”

“Her name was Emma.”
That’s what Brandon Haas told investigators less than two minutes after waiving his Miranda rights in October 2020, following his arrest in the death of 3-year-old Emma Grace Cole.

The toddler, who is not biologically related to Haas – he is married to her mother, Kristie Cole Haas – was found by a child on the edge of a Smyrna softball field in Sept. 2019. Her identity remained unknown for a year, until one of Kristie Haas’ family members came across a forensic sketch.
Since their arrests, Brandon Haas has largely agreed to work with law enforcement, which allowed him to remain out on bond. His cooperation came to a head earlier this year when his attorneys negotiated a plea deal that required him to testify against his wife should her case go to trial.

She ultimately pleaded guilty in May after learning that her husband had also pleaded.
On Thursday, Haas' past two years of cooperation proved not to pay off as he was sentenced to four years in prison, significantly more than the sentence of probation his defense team had asked for, though a year less than prosecutors requested.
At Thursday's sentencing, Haas did little to acknowledge the pain he inflicted on Emma Grace and her siblings, largely focusing his apology on the fact that he did not call 911 after the toddler died.
While he said it is "a decision I regret to this day and will forever," he largely blamed his wife for the abuse and did not mention what the children suffered.

Recently, he told pre-sentence investigators that he had "little to no knowledge" of his wife's abuse of her children − but immediately after his arrest, admitted his role in the crimes and detailed Kristie Haas' actions.

Kent County Superior Court Judge Noel Primos noted this Thursday.

"What concerns and troubles the court, however, is that what Mr. Haas has told the pre-sentence investigator ... and what he has told this court, both through counsel and his own statements, is very different from a full acceptance of responsibility."
 
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