Officials charged a woman with lying to police during the investigation into the death of a young black boy in southeast Georgia after her son was accused of pushing and killing the child.
Authorities in Jesup, Georgia, began investigating the death of Noah Bush in May after he disappeared from his home. It took less than a day for investigators to find the 8-year-old's body in a water-filled construction pit.
Lawyers are calling for charges against adults who protected 10- and 11-year-olds in the death of 8-year-old Noah Bush (inset) in a south Georgia town. (Image credit: (GoFundMe/WTOC Screenshot)
They initially assumed that his death was an accident, as he had allegedly “wandered” into the pit. Bush's family was not entirely convinced by their findings and hired a private investigator. They also asked the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) to investigate the eight-year-old's death.
Weeks later, a medical examiner's autopsy report revealed that Bush had died by murder, leading to the arrest of two children, ages 10 and 11.
Authorities charged the 11-year-old boy with manslaughter, assault, covering up the death of another person and trespassing. They say he pushed Noah into the pit.
The 10-year-old was charged with covering up the death of another person and trespassing.
Police also arrested the 11-year-old boy's mother, Natalie Hardison, and charged her with making false statements to police, which is a felony. Hardison, 35, also faces a probation violation and another charge of violating the school attendance requirement for children between the ages of 6 and 16. This law makes parents responsible for enrolling their children in public or private schools or homeschooling programs.
The Bush family's lawyers had previously called for the adults associated with the alleged juvenile offenders to be charged. They had “lied” and “helped to cover up and obstruct the investigation.”
Bush's family attorney Mawuli Davis told Atlanta Black Star that Hardison's arrest was “another step toward justice for the family and the community that has organized and demanded justice for Noah.”
“We know that one of the children pushed Noah into the water, got in the water behind Noah, held Noah's head in the water for a period of time and got out of the water, but Noah did not,” Davis explained. “So we have always believed that a child coming home soaking wet will give an explanation to an adult, and that adult would have known that Noah Bush was in a watery grave. The fact that this juvenile's mother is accused of lying to police during the course of the investigation reinforces the family's suspicions that she was involved in the incident.”
The Wayne County Sheriff's Office said additional charges are possible. Davis believes another adult in the 11-year-old's home may also have played a role in the cover-up attempt.
“There is another adult in this household who participated in the search for Noah,” Davis said. “We are concerned that these efforts were not sincere and that he may have known about Noah's death. His actions need to be further investigated.”
In a press release, Davis announced that a lead investigator had testified about a video that showed the 11-year-old boy hitting a black child, who was not Bush, and repeatedly calling him the N-word in an incident before Bush's death.
“I am sure investigators are looking into whether there were racist motives that led to these young people being involved in Noah's death,” Davis said.[The video] is something that raises concerns when it is unclear why a 10-year-old and an 11-year-old would be involved in the death of a child. Since both children are white and [Noah] Because we are a black child, we have to investigate. We have an obligation to examine whether race played a role.”
Davis also raised serious concerns about the property where Noah was killed and addressed some safety concerns.
“People were going there regularly. There were open entrances and very few trespassing signs. So we're definitely concerned that the county should have been much more concerned about maintaining a potentially dangerous place,” Davis explained.
Davis and his team are considering civil suits against the county following Bush's death. No injunctions have been filed so far.
