Missing Baby Shamali Flores found safe in SW Houston apartment

HOUSTON, TX - HPD officials announced an arrest of woman, Erika Jisela Miranda-Alvarez charged with capital murder after a mom's stabbing death and the disappearance of 6-week-old, Shamali Flores. Authorities confirmed earlier this morning that 6-week-old Shamali Flores has been found in a SW Houston apartment. "She appears unharmed and is being check at an area hospital as a precaution."

Baby Shamali has been missing since Tuesday morning when her mom, Carolina Flores was discovered stabbed to death at her North Houston apartment. Detectives have been working around the clock since Tuesday morning to locate this baby.  HPD will hold a live update on this investigation today at 11 a.m.

During a news conference on Wednesday afternoon, HPD Chief Art Acevedo said the person who abducted six-week-old Shamali Flores from the home where the infant's mother, Carolina Flores was found stabbed may be a woman who is claiming the baby as her own. HPD also released information to help find the child including corrections to spellings for the girl's name, Shamali and the full name of her father.  HPD detectives investigated if the perpetrator could have been a woman who might have tried to pass off the baby as her own. "That was their operating theory." 

Although the missing child's father, identified on Wednesday as 34-year-old Marcos Mariano Thomas Palacios, has been cooperating in the case and told police that he was not involved in the murder, Chief Acevedo added, “I can’t say 100 percent we’re gonna clear him.” Palacios was initially identified as Thomas Bernardez.

The FBI has deployed its Child Abduction Rapid Deployment Team to search for Shamali Flores.

HPD homicide division conducted an investigation of the apartment unit on Goodson Drive near Imperial Valley Drive in northeast Houston and checked the front door for finger prints on Wednesday.

An Amber Alert was issued on Tuesday evening for Shamali Flores, described as 30 inches tall and weighing 20 pounds. She is believed to be Honduran and possibly black or mixed race origin.

When the alert was issued, law enforcement officers believed that she might have been with her father, but he was later found in his vehicle in San Antonio without the girl. That vehicle was also initially listed in the alert.

Anyone with information about the missing child is encouraged to contact the Houston Police Department by phone at 713-308-3600.