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Missing Florida toddler found dead in alligator’s mouth

The body of a two-year-old boy that police in St Petersburg, Florida, had been frantically searching for after his mother was murdered on Wednesday was found on Friday in the jaws of an alligator.

The boy’s father has been arrested on suspicion of murder.

St Petersburg Police Chief Anthony Holloway told reporters Taylen Mosley was found dead in a recreation area.

Detectives were searching the area around Dell Holmes Park in St Petersburg, which is the fifth most populous city in Florida, when they “spotted an alligator with an object in its mouth”, said Chief Holloway.

“As the detectives got closer, they fired one round at the alligator,” he said. “The alligator dropped the object that he had in his mouth, and we were able to retrieve Taylen’s body intact.”

“We didn’t want to find him this way,” said Chief Holloway.

Taylen had just celebrated his second birthday 19 days before he was found dead.

Taylen’s father, Thomas Mosley, 21, has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of 20-year-old Pashun Jeffery and their son, Taylen, Chief Holloway said.

Ms Jeffery was found stabbed multiple times, but Taylen’s exact cause of death remains unknown.

Ms Jeffery and her son were last seen at around 5.30pm on Wednesday afternoon.

Neighbours told police they heard loud noises coming from Ms Jeffery’s apartment at around 8.30pm that day.

On Thursday, Ms Jeffery’s mother, Ms Lakita Denson, contacted the apartment complex property manager after not hearing from her daughter. That was when they found her dead, and Taylen missing.

Taylen was initially classified as a “kidnapped child”.

The boy’s family nicknamed him “Tay-Tay” and “Glam”. They said he loved peanut butter and jelly sandwiches but hated grits. He loved calling his mother every day when she had breaks from work at her job at a pharmacy.

“Taylen is a beautiful little boy,” Ms Theo Brickhouse-Sails, Ms Jefferey’s great aunt, said.

Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement joined local authorities in the search for Taylen.

Dive teams scoured lakes that dot the area, and drones were used during a grid search.

Mosley went to his mother’s house about 9pm on Wednesday with cuts on his arms and hands, Chief Holloway said, and then admitted himself to a local hospital.

Family members said Ms Jeffery and Taylen moved into the apartment complex in February.

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