Columbus police were still searching early Saturday for Lashanda Wilder after a body believed to be that of a 9-year-old son she reported missing was found Friday afternoon in the family’s home in the Milo-Grogan neighborhood.
Police Chief Elaine Bryant said at a news conference late Friday night that police did not know how Martonio Wilder died and would await the results of an autopsy by the Franklin County Coroner’s office. Investigators are treating the death as suspicious, she said.
Bryant said Lashanda Wilder called police just after noon Friday to report that her 9-year-old son Martonio — police originally incorrectly reported the boy was 8 years old in a release — had been missing since around 9:30 p.m. Thursday.
She said her son previously wandered off in the neighborhood. She told police he was last seen around Olmstead and St. Clair avenues.
Police responded to the Wilder home, in the 1000 block of Olmstead Avenue, and deployed a helicopter to search the area for the missing boy.
Police issued a missing person release for Martonio on Friday afternoon. Due to his age, the police Missing Persons Unit said he was classified as “endangered missing.”
Bryant said police found Martonio’s body inside the Wilder home Friday afternoon.
At that point, however, the mother had left the home with her other two boys, King Wilder, 3, and Mikhael Simon, 9.
Columbus police issued an area-wide be on the lookout alert late Friday afternoon that was later repeated by Delaware County and other police agencies, reporting Lashanda Wilder was wanted as a homicide suspect.
At the late Friday night news conference, however, police said Wilder was a person of interest, not a homicide suspect, but acknowledged anyone close to someone in a suspicious death could be considered a suspect.
Police said they would look into the BOLO alert that identified her as a suspect.
