The Las Vegas man accused of holding his girlfriend hostage, murdering her 4-year-old son and keeping his remains in the garage freezer now claims the boy’s mother aided in the cover-up.
Brandon Toseland, 35, has been charged with the murder of Mason Dominguez, child abuse, kidnapping and domestic violence after Mason’s mother, Dahsia Maldonado, snuck a note pleading for help to her 7-year-old daughter’s teachers in February.
Maldonado told police that she hadn’t seen her son since Dec. 11, when she told Toseland that Mason was sick. Toseland refused to let her get help and instead took Mason into the master bedroom and barricaded the door, according to the arrest affidavit previously obtained by the Daily News.
Days later, Toseland told her he “could not show Mason’s body because his freedom would be taken away,” according to police, then eventually claimed that he had found the boy unresponsive and covered in vomit on the bed, and that he unsuccessfully tried to resuscitate him.
Police accused Toseland of “negligent maltreatment of a child causing death” after failing to get him proper medical care.
During the execution of a search warrant served after the young girl gave the note to her teacher, Mason’s body was found stuffed into a trash bag and hidden under a false cardboard bottom and “multiple food items,” according to an arrest affidavit obtained by the Daily News. Odor absorption bags, fans and an air filtration unit encircled the freezer.
During her grand jury testimony, Maldonado claimed that Toseland had turned abusive a few months into their relationship, taking away her phone and handcuffing her in the car when they went out, according to KNTV.
But in a new filing obtained by Fox 5, Toseland’s lawyers claim that he and Maldonado “colluded” to “preserve” Mason’s body in the garage freezer until they could afford a proper burial.
Toseland also claimed the handcuffs with which Maldonado claims she was shackled in his car were used for sex, not imprisonment, and that Maldonado sold her story to magazines and in her wrongful death lawsuit to “deflect from her own negligence.”
Maldonado has not been charged in relation with Mason’s death and a spokesperson for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department did not immediately return a request for comment from the Daily News Monday.
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