In a tearful interview earlier this month, Kristy Siple mourned the loss of her 5-year-old daughter, Kamarie, who had been found dead in an abandoned home just hours before. Siple, 35, called her daughter a “blessing” and told interviewers she “lived for her daily.”
“She was just the sweetest girl in the world,” she told local news station WTVM. “You could not harm that little girl because she was so innocent, she was so smart … She was perfect.”
Two weeks later, Siple was charged in the death and alleged sexual abuse of her “perfect” little girl.
ADVERTISEMENT
In a news conference Tuesday, Sheriff Heath Taylor of Russell County, Alabama, told reporters that Siple had been charged with murder during the course of kidnapping, sodomy, and rape in the death of her daughter, who disappeared from Siple’s home Dec. 13. (Siple has yet to enter a plea or secure an attorney.)
Siple had previously told investigators that she picked the girl up from her father’s home that Sunday, only to find her missing and the front door open the next morning. In her interview with WTVM, she insisted she had nothing to do with the disappearance, telling the reporter: “I would never, she was my life.”
But in a statement Tuesday night, the child’s father, Corey Holland, said differently.
“The amount of pain Kristy has caused by ripping Kamarie out of our lives will never cease,” he said in a statement shared with The Daily Beast. “Kristy is a monster. My family and I will continue to wrestle with the loss of losing our angel Kamarie.”
Police previously charged another suspect, Jeremy Williams, with capital murder in the case. Williams remained in Russell County jail on no bond Wednesday, Taylor said, and the district attorney’s office expected additional charges to be filed against him soon. (William’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment.)
Williams was arrested Dec. 15, after police found the child’s body in an abandoned house at one of his previous addresses. At the time, Taylor said the child had been kidnapped and sexually abused. He added that Williams and Siple knew each other previously, but was unable to provide more details because of a gag order issued by the judge in the case.
Williams was previously charged with child abuse in 2009, for allegedly immersing a three-year-old boy’s body in a pot of boiling water, but was acquitted three years later, according to local news site CBS42. (Williams reportedly argued at the time that the boy had pulled the water on top of himself.)
Williams was also been charged with child abuse in Columbus, Georgia, and was a suspect in the death of a 1-year-old in Alaska, Taylor said at an earlier press conference. He was never charged in the Alaska case, and the disposition of the Columbus case was unknown.
Siple is currently facing charges of chemical endangerment of a child in a 2018 case in which prosecutors allege she exposed her fetus to marijuana while pregnant. She is set to go to trial on house charges early next year.
Family members told The Daily Beast that the child lived primarily with her father, but would not comment on why she was with her mother the day she went missing, citing the gag order in the case.
Adrienne Davis, one of Holland’s cousins, said the girl’s younger brother, who also lived with his father, still had not fully processed her death.
“Now he’ll run around and play for a while and then he just starts looking for her,” she said. “I think that’s the hardest thing, just not being able to explain to him that she’s not coming back.”
Holland’s sister, Tamrah, said she wanted to see anyone involved in Kamarie’s murder punished to the full extent of the law.
As for the girl’s mother, she added: “If she had any knowledge of Kamarie being hurt, or she had anything to do with Kamarie being hurt, then it’s great, I’m very glad she’s been arrested.”
