Syracuse, N.Y. — Neffy Harris’s life was hard from the start: She was born with cocaine in her system and taken from her mother at the hospital.
It ended just five years later, the little girl dead after her mother beat her to death, police said.
Neffy’s mom, 29-year-old Latasha Mott, put her in the shower at their South Side home and beat her repeatedly with a belt on Jan. 6, according to Syracuse police. The beating killed Neffy. Then Mott took her daughter’s body to a field somewhere in Syracuse and buried her, police said.
Police searched for Neffy in two different places Monday, bringing lights in as they continued to look for the child’s body through the night.
After Mott hid Neffy’s body, she lied to those around her for nearly three months to cover up the child’s disappearance, police and other sources said.
It was only on Saturday, when that lie fell apart, that people realized Neffy was missing, according to sources close to the investigation.
Whenever Mott’s mother asked where Neffy was, why she wasn’t with her daughter’s six other children, Mott would say Neffy was with a family friend who had taken care of her during those early years.
When that friend would ask about Neffy, Mott told her that the little girl, whose full name is Nefertiti, was with her grandmother.
This weekend, the two women ran into each other, sources said.
Each woman asked the other how the little girl was. Then the lie broke.
What started as a chat about the little girl became a frantic search for the truth about what had happened to her.
Syracuse police search for body of 5-year-old girl
Neffy’s grandmother, Chianti Frazier, made a call to police to report Neffy missing Saturday morning, sources said.
Much of this story is based on sources who are familiar with the case. They declined to be identified because their jobs prohibit commenting on the case, but they were motivated by the brutality of the allegation.
Facebook messages between members of Mott’s family show them desperately searching for anyone who knew where she was.
Mott and her boyfriend were out of town, said Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick. When they returned Sunday, police asked them to come to police headquarters, Fitzpatrick said. Once there, Mott admitted to beating Neffy until she died and hiding her body, police said.
Mott’s boyfriend, whom police did not identify, did not cooperate with investigators and was released Sunday.
Court papers offered no insight into how a mother could kill her child in the savage way that is alleged.
Sources familiar with the case could offer no clues about what made Mott act, or how a family full of children who are loved and celebrated in social media posts could carry on for months with one of them missing.
People familiar with Neffy’s life and her mother’s painted a picture of a family that had touched nearly every part of the system in Onondaga County meant to help struggling families. And on paper, until recently, it seemed like that system was helping, a source familiar with the case said.
On Jan. 4, two days before Neffy was killed, a caseworker from county Child Protective Services recommended that a case that had been opened against Mott be closed after visiting her home and seeing six of her seven children, including Neffy. The oldest child, born when Mott was a teen, was often at his grandmother’s house.
On Dec. 13, less than a month before Neffy’s death, someone made a complaint to CPS that one of Neffy’s brothers had a bruise on his cheek they suspected was caused by abuse.
A caseworker investigated and found that the bruise was from the child hitting his face when he climbed under his bed while playing. The case, though, was left open.
On Dec. 30, there was a new cause for concern. Neffy’s mother gave birth to another baby, who, like Neffy, was born with traces of drugs in their blood. This time, the drug was an amphetamine, a source said.
Mott was allowed to take the baby home to 127 W. Beard Ave., where a CPS caseworker visited again Jan. 4.
When the caseworker visited then, they found the apartment clean, the children clean with no bruises or other signs of abuse. There was food in the refrigerator and no signs of drug use, the source said. The CPS case was closed that day.
It’s unclear what happened between Jan. 4 and Jan. 6, when police say Mott beat Neffy to death just eight days after coming home with another baby.
But details from CPS’s experience with Neffy’s mother during her short life tell a story of struggle, triumph and horrific failure.
When Neffy was born Nov. 17, 2018, the evidence of cocaine in her system led a family court judge to remove her and her four older siblings from Mott’s care.
The children, including a set of twins, were put in foster care, according to a source. During that time, Mott worked to do everything the judge asked of her, the source said. She had struggles with drug addiction and her mental health, but by 2020, the trouble seemed under control and the children were returned to her.
Mott was monitored by the county for a year after her children were returned and there were no problems until that December complaint about Neffy’s brother’s cheek, according to the source.
But there was at least one sign Mott might have been struggling. In the first days of January, before that final caseworker visit, Mott called Healthy Families, an Onondaga County program that offers parenting assistance, and asked for help. But it never happened. In the weeks that followed, she missed or canceled her appointments.
Less than a week after that call and two days after a caseworker said Mott was a safe parent, she killed her daughter and hid her body somewhere in the cold woods, police said.
Monday, they searched a wooded area near Brick School Terrace apartments on Salt Springs Road.
They carried shovels, buckets and tarps down a snowy path to continue the search for Neffy’s body. And answers.
Reporters Darian Stevenson, Timia Cobb and Jon Moss contributed to this story.
Do you know anything about what happened to Neffy? Contact Marnie Eisenstadt anytime: email | call or text 315-470-2246.
