SALON

Friday, Jan 6, 2012 3:27 PM UTC

SC Missing Boy’s Mom Told Cops She Had No Children

By

Topics: From the Wires,

SC Missing Boy's Mom Told Cops She Had No ChildrenIn this Nov. 25, 2011 photo provided by the Columbia S.C., Police Dept., 18-month-old Amir Jennings is shown near Columbia, S.C. Investigators might have had no leads on a missing mother and child if the woman hadn't crashed her car on Christmas Eve. But even after questioning Zinah Jennings in custody, police don't know what's happened to her son. She is now in jail, charged with lying to authorities about where the boy is, prompting a search by local, state and federal authorities spanning the Carolinas, Georgia and beyond. (AP Photo/Columbia S.C., Police Dept.)(Credit: AP)

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The mother of an 18-month-old South Carolina boy missing for more than a month initially told investigators she didn’t have a son, then gave conflicting statements about what she did with him, authorities said.

Questioned after a Christmas Eve car wreck, Zinah Jennings told police that she did not have a son before saying the boy, Amir, was in Atlanta, according to warrants provided to The Associated Press by Columbia police.

Jennings also took investigators to a Columbia apartment complex where she said she had dropped off her son. She later said she didn’t know the apartment number or location within the complex, police said.

Authorities planned a noon news conference Friday.

In early December, Amir’s grandmother contacted police, saying she was worried about the boy and her daughter. Jocelyn Jennings Nelson told authorities that her daughter was a former Winthrop University student who struggled with depression and started acting erratically after her son’s birth, according to Chief Randy Scott.

Police said they began looking for Jennings, 22, but also considered that relatives said she had repeatedly left town for days at a time, taking her son to visit friends in neighboring states.

Several weeks later, on Christmas Eve, police investigating a one-car wreck just blocks from Jennings’ home were surprised to find the driver was the young mother they’d been looking for. Interviewed at a hospital, police say Jennings gave conflicting statements about where the boy was, telling authorities the boy was with friends and family in cities from Atlanta to Charlotte, N.C.

Police spoke with Amir’s father, who told them he had seen the boy during Thanksgiving but generally has had little contact with him. The father was not identified by police.

After several dead ends, the mother was arrested Dec. 29 and charged with lying to police about her son’s whereabouts. Authorities say they have stepped up their efforts to find the boy and are hoping a tip line will yield some information.

Police searched the mother’s home and car this week with cadaver dogs.

Search warrants show that authorities were looking for items that could contain Amir’s DNA, but paperwork listing items removed from Jennings’ bedroom was heavily redacted.

Jennings is being held in Richland County jail on $150,000 bond. Police have said they don’t know if she has an attorney.

___

Online:

SC Crimestoppers:

___

Kinnard can be reached at

More Meg Kinnard.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments are not enabled for this story.

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Oklahoma senator: Tornado aid “totally different” from Sandy aid
3091 points3092 points | 2558 comments
vote
Anyone Regret Slashing National Weather Service Budget Now?: With GOP-backed cuts to forecasting agency, experts warn future storms will go undetected and more lives lost
1073 points1074 points | 577 comments
vote
Oklahoma senator wants to offset tornado aid with other cuts
154 points155 points | 61 comments
vote
New campaign compares gun control to anti-LGBT discrimination
30 points31 points | 11 comments
vote
Horrifying new trend: Posting rapes to Facebook " In Chicago this weekend, prosecutors announced three teenaged boys will tried as adults for aggravated criminal sexual assault after allegedly raping a 12-year-old girl — and posting a video of the attack on Facebook."
34 points35 points | 15 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations