Decomposing Baby Found, Mother Charged with Murder

(Spring Lake, North Carolina) A soldier, Ronald Earl Creech II, returned home last Friday from deployment in Iraq to find his baby daughter missing. The mother, 25-year-old Johni Michelle Heuser, said the last time she saw 11-month-old Harmony Creech was on Thursday. Authorities were notified and an Amber Alert was issued.

The alert was called off after the body was found.

When officers arrived at the home of the girl's mother, they found the window of the baby's room open, the screen on the ground and most of Harmony's clothes missing.

But after authorities found Harmony's remains, Heuser changed her story and said she found the infant dead several weeks ago but didn't tell anyone and panicked.

So, for weeks the body of baby Harmony was decomposing in the attic and the mother was silent. Heuser was charged with first-degree murder.

Heuser's neighbors say her daughter Harmony's disappearance sounded fishy from the start. "Initially, I felt there was foul play involved but I felt also that it was someone they knew," said Stacie Siebert. "I felt it was an inside job from the beginning."

Siebert says Harmony's death is shocking. She says finding out the missing girl was dead all along, during the extensive search for her, is mind boggling. "She could have stopped it at anytime," Siebert added.

Sad, sad story. A father returns from duty in Iraq to learn that his baby girl is dead, possibly murdered by her mother. He enjoys none of the anticipated warm hugs and kisses, just the feeling that his guts have been ripped apart.