Tragic news has emerged from Mexico as authorities confirm the death of an Indianapolis mother who disappeared with her seven children over three months ago.
According to a report from Fox59, the body of 30-year-old Makala Pendley was discovered in a ditch in the village of Chiapas, located in southern Mexico, earlier this week. Local officials revealed to her family that she had been brutally assaulted and murdered.
Pendley, who was six months pregnant at the time of her death, had been in the ditch for approximately eight to twelve hours. Chiapas prosecutor Jorge Luis Llaven Abarca reported that her death resulted from a traumatic brain injury inflicted by blunt force trauma.
Jennifer Lambert, Pendley’s sister, shared heart-wrenching details through a GoFundMe page, recounting her sister’s horrific ordeal, stating Makala was “stabbed, raped, sodomized, naked, with her head bashed in.”
Fortunately, Pendley’s children were found unharmed and in “good health” in the San Cristóbal de las Casas neighborhood of the Mexican state, as confirmed by Abarca.
In connection with the case, Joseph Jude Butler Jr., the father of the children, has been arrested. Authorities are pushing for the maximum penalty, seeking a 100-year sentence for the crime of femicide.
Butler was previously detained for a slew of crimes, including robbery, fraud, assault and rape and had an active arrest warrant in Alaska, according to Abarca.
Pendley and her children – Nikola, 12, Joseph, 10, Aubrielle, 8, Orion, 7, Earthum, 5, Polaris, 3, and 1-year-old Azrael – were reported missing by a Department of Child Services case manager on Feb. 25.
She and the children had been located last month, Indianapolis cops said.
“The children were taken into custody by Mexican authorities who later released them back to Makala,” authorities added.
She fled to Mexico with her children and Butler Jr. earlier this year amid fears she thought her kids would be taken from her, her sister Maurica Lambert told Fox59.
Pendley had been in an “on-off, toxic relationship” with Butler since she was 16, the Indianapolis Star reported. The mom has also reported vandalism cases to Indianapolis cops.
But court papers, obtained by Noticieros Televisa, have claimed Pendley was assaulted by Butler at a Mérida, Yucatan, home in August 2025. Two days later, the children were taken into custody by Mexican authorities.
Lambert described her sibling’s death as “the worst day in her life” and was stunned that Butler was named as the suspect.
“It just never would have crossed my mind that it would have been him,” she said.
“I’ve never gotten like that type of like feeling from him or anything.”
“The sadness I feel is a sadness that will stay forever and leave a hole that will never be filled again,” she wrote online. “My sister, my beautiful sister, RIP Makala, you didn’t deserve this.
“I can’t believe I’m never gonna see her again.”
