A mother’s long-running effort to locate her son has raised questions about decisions made during the first year of the case.
BELLEVILLE, Ill. — The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department is reviewing how its Juvenile Division responded to a mother’s 2024 report that her young son was missing after a renewed investigation led authorities to child remains in a wooded area across the state line in Illinois.
The Internal Affairs investigation adds an accountability inquiry to a case already spanning several agencies, two states and more than two years. Police said the review will examine the department’s initial response, the work performed after the report and whether officers met department policies and expectations. The review began after remains believed to be those of a small child were recovered July 8 in Stookey Township outside Belleville, Illinois.
The department has publicly acknowledged the mother’s grief, frustration and unanswered questions. It said the family and community deserve transparency and that any shortcomings identified in the review should lead to corrective action. The statement stopped short of finding misconduct or negligence. Internal Affairs reviews are fact-finding processes, and the department has not announced when its examination will be completed or whether its findings will be released in full. The missing boy’s mother contacted St. Louis police in July 2024, saying she had not seen her child since he was last with his father that spring. Police said the parents shared custody at the time. Public accounts differ slightly on whether the last sighting occurred in April or May, but the Missouri State Highway Patrol listed April 2024 as the last contact with Ronnell Jones Jr., a 2-year-old also known by the nickname “Prince.”
The mother later told local reporters she had tried repeatedly to persuade authorities to treat the disappearance as urgent. She said she was told the matter was viewed as a civil custody dispute because she and the boy’s father were still legally married and no court order clearly assigned custody. The department has not released records that would establish what each officer was told, how the reports were classified or which investigative steps were taken immediately after each contact.
Police said their detectives did pursue leads, interview numerous people and work to verify conflicting information from the child’s parents. They said the boy had disappeared before officers became involved, limiting the availability of immediate evidence. Investigators eventually identified a person of interest and applied for parental kidnapping charges in early 2025, but the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office asked for additional work before reaching a charging decision.
That explanation has not resolved questions about why the boy remained missing for another year. The department’s internal review is expected to examine the timing and quality of follow-up work, the handling of statements by the parents and whether investigators used all available systems and outside agencies. No public record reviewed for this story establishes that any particular officer deliberately ignored evidence or violated a rule.
The father, Ronnell Marquese Jones, 32, allegedly offered several explanations for the child’s absence. Police said he claimed at one stage that the boy had entered the custody of Missouri’s Children’s Division. Investigators determined that account was false, according to a probable cause statement described by local news organizations. Jones also allegedly said the child was living with an Amish community in Mississippi and that he continued to visit him.
Authorities said Jones did not provide information that allowed them to verify the Mississippi claim or locate the community he described. The allegation became one of the case’s most unusual details, but police have not said that any Amish person or community was involved. The available evidence instead shows that investigators treated Jones’ statement as one of several accounts requiring verification. No reliable public report has identified a Mississippi community that received the child.
The case changed after the mother approached police in Desloge, Missouri, in June 2026. Desloge is in St. Francois County, south of St. Louis. Its police department said it opened a parental kidnapping investigation June 12 after receiving a report that the mother had not seen her child in more than a year. Officers interviewed people in multiple jurisdictions and worked with county prosecutors to seek arrest warrants.
Jones was arrested June 30 on charges of parental kidnapping and harassment. Kirstie Dora, 35, of St. Louis, was arrested July 2 on the same charges. Police have not publicly described Dora’s relationship to Jones, the mother or the child. Both defendants were held without bond after authorities disclosed the recovery of the remains. The charges are allegations, and neither defendant had been charged with homicide or another offense directly alleging responsibility for the child’s death in the latest confirmed information.
Six days after Jones’ arrest, investigators executed a search warrant in Stookey Township, a rural and wooded part of St. Clair County. Police have not fully explained how they selected the site. St. Louis authorities said coordinated work among local, state and federal agencies led to the recovery. A television report said investigators had received information that a child might be buried there. Authorities found remains described as those of a small child.
The St. Clair County Coroner’s Office began working to establish an identity and cause of death. Officials initially said they believed the remains were connected to the parental kidnapping investigation, but they avoided declaring that the remains belonged to the missing boy before forensic confirmation. That distinction is important because investigators must compare physical or genetic evidence and cannot rely only on the location or circumstances of the discovery. Authorities have released no confirmed time of death, medical findings or account of how the child came to be in Illinois. They also have not said whether Stookey Township was the location where the child died or only where the remains were placed. Those unanswered questions affect which prosecutors could have jurisdiction over any future death-related case and what evidence would be required to support additional charges.
The mother’s account of her last encounter with the boy has become part of the investigation. According to court information cited by news organizations, she said the child was in Jones’ vehicle and appeared to be missing teeth when she confronted the father. She said Jones drove away with the boy. Authorities have not publicly explained how the teeth were lost or whether that observation was connected to any injury, so it cannot be treated as proof of what later happened.
The police review and criminal investigation have different purposes. Detectives and prosecutors are trying to determine the identity of the remains, reconstruct the child’s movements and decide whether the evidence supports more charges. Internal Affairs investigators are examining the department’s conduct after the first report. A finding about police procedure would not determine the criminal responsibility of Jones, Dora or anyone else, and the criminal charges do not establish that the original police response violated policy.
The case also illustrates the difficulty of investigating a missing child when parents provide conflicting accounts and custody arrangements are unclear. Such complications can affect how an initial call is categorized, but St. Louis police said every report involving a child is expected to receive urgency and thoroughness. The department’s own statement said protecting vulnerable children is among its most important duties and that the public expects a careful examination of what occurred.
As of Aug. 4, police had not announced a completed identification, a cause of death, new charges or the outcome of the Internal Affairs inquiry. Jones and Dora remained accused only of the offenses publicly filed against them, and the broader death investigation continued with assistance from authorities in Missouri and Illinois. The next verified developments are expected to come from forensic findings, court proceedings or the police department’s review.
Author note: Last updated Aug. 4, 2026.