Two women have been arrested and charged in connection with the murder of Haley Mae Coblentz, whose remains were found in a duffle bag in Oregon last year.
Oregon State Police said in a statement Wednesday that Coblentz’s mother, 29-year-old Shawna Browning, and her “significant other,” 34-year-old Lauren Harrison, were arrested on Tuesday in Detroit, Michigan.
Their arrests arrive nearly a year after Haley’s body was found stuffed in a duffle bag on Dec. 10, 2020, at a rest stop on the the H.B. Van Duzer Forrest State Scenic Corridor, a driving route in the western part of Oregon.
Browning and Harrison are being held without bond on suspicion of aggravated murder. Once extradited back to Oregon to stand trial, both women are facing a maximum sentence of life in prison or the death penalty.
For nearly a year, police investigated Coblentz’s murder without even knowing the child’s name. OSP officer Stephanie Bigman told NBC affiliate KGW of Portland that police never gave up searching for her identity.
“Children don’t have a lot of history in the world,” she said. “They don’t necessarily have a big stamp. She was not on any database. Nobody knew that she was missing. They were able to do some genetic work and give us a bigger breakdown of what she might look like. Really, when they were able to get the genealogy work and narrowed down who she was and give us an actual name.”
Bigman added, “We were able to give her name back to her. She was nameless for so long and then to be able to make the arrest of the people responsible for her death, it’s bittersweet. It gives you some satisfaction, but it doesn’t bring her back.”
