MILWAUKEE — The Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is conducting a death investigation regarding the body of a missing Milwaukee 2-year-old that was located Friday in Steele County, Minn.
Friday at 7 p.m. a Department of Public Works employee saw a blanket off Highway 218 and inside the blanket was the Noelani Robinson's body, according to Milwaukee Police Chief Alfonso Morales.
Police said they believe the death did not occur in the last 24 hours and that she had been dead for quite some time.
The Southern Minnesota Regional Medical Examiner's Office determined the preliminary cause and manner of death to be "homicide due to blunt trauma to the head."
The Milwaukee Police Department had asked for the public's help to locate 2-year-old Noelani Robinson Monday night.
Her father Dariaz Higgins is accused of killing the child's mother and was arrested Wednesday.
Prosecutors have charged him with first-degree murder.
Authorities said they cannot tell the public why the body was found in Minnesota and if Higgins is cooperating.
BCA agents and executed a search warrant at a hotel in Austin, Minn. early Saturday, where they believe Higgins stayed at one point during the past week.
Prosecutors said in charging documents that Higgins traveled to Milwaukee to give Noelani to Robinson, but it was unknown if Higgins actually brought her with him. Police said Higgins was Robinson's pimp and they had been romantically involved but were no longer together. Robinson left Noelani with Higgins when she moved to Las Vegas last month but wanted her back, authorities said.
According to charging documents, Higgins, Robinson, and her friend spent time driving around together in Milwaukee doing drugs Monday, before Higgins took them to an apartment building where he told them Noelani was. Prosecutors said Higgins shot Robinson and her friend when they got out of the car.
Morales had suggested Noelani could be in the hands of human traffickers, but declined to provide details for why investigators believed that, other than to say "that's the world that these two individuals lived in, the victim and the suspect."