TAOS, N.M. — The father of a missing 4-year-old Georgia boy was training children at a filthy New Mexico compound to commit school shootings, prosecutors alleged in court documents Wednesday. The documents say Siraj Ibn Wahhaj was conducting weapons training with assault rifles at the compound near the Colorado border.
It was at that compound in Amalia where authorities found 11 hungry children living in squalor when they raided it Friday.
Prosecutors Timothy Hasson filed the documents while asking that Wahhaj be held without bail after he was arrested last week with four other adults facing child abuse charges.
Prosecutors did not bring up the school shooting accusation in court Wednesday during an initial appearance by the abuse suspects.
Authorities have also said they discovered remains of a boy at the compound. Medical examiners are working to determine a positive identification.
This Friday, Aug. 3, 2018, photo released by Taos County Sheriff’s Office shows Siraj Wahhaj.
Taos County Sheriff’s Office via AP
CBS affiliate KRQE-TV reported that the malnourished children are in the custody of the state’s Children, Youth and Families Department.
Wahhaj appeared in court Wednesday on a previous warrant from Georgia that seeks his extradition to face a charge of abducting his son, Abdul-ghani Wahhaj, from that state last December. He had expressed wanting to perform an exorcism on his son, the warrant said. The mother told police that Wahhaj took the boy for a trip to a park and never returned.
Jason Badger, who owned the property where the compound was built, said he and his wife had pressed authorities to remove the group after becoming concerned about the children. The group had built the compound on their acreage instead of a neighboring tract owned by Lucas Morton, one of the men arrested during the raid.
“I started to try and kick them off about three months ago and everything I tried to do kept getting knocked down,” said Badger said.
A judge dismissed an eviction notice filed by Badger against Morton in June, court records said. The records did not provide further details on the judge’s decision.
The group arrived in Amalia in December, with enough money to buy groceries and construction supplies, according to Tyler Anderson, a 41-year-old auto mechanic who lives nearby.
He said Tuesday he helped the newcomers install solar panels after they arrived but eventually stopped visiting.
Taos County Planning Department officials Rachel Romero, left, and Eric Montoya survey property conditions at a disheveled living compound at Amalia, N.M., on Tue., Aug. 7, 2018.
AP
Anderson said he met both of the men in the group, but never the women, who authorities have said are the mothers of the 11 children, ages 1 to 15.
Anderson did not recall seeing the Georgia boy who was missing. But he said some of the smaller children from the compound turned up to play with children at neighboring properties after the group first arrived.
“We just figured they were doing what we were doing, getting a piece of land and getting off the grid,” said Anderson, who moved to New Mexico from Seattle with his wife seven years ago.
As the months passed, however, they stopped seeing the smaller children playing in the area. They also stopped hearing guns fired off at a shooting range on the property, he said.
After the raid, Anderson went over and looked at the property for the first time in months.
“I was flabbergasted from what it had turned into from the last time I saw it,” he said.
Authorities said the compound shielded by old tires, wooden pallets and an earthen wall studded with broken glass had been littered with “odorous trash.”
The 11 children found living at the encampment — described as a small trailer embedded in the ground — had been without clean water and appeared to have not eaten in days, according to Taos County Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe.
At a news conference in Taos, Hogrefe described FBI surveillance efforts in recent months that included photographs of the compound and interviews. He said the images were shared with the mother of Abdul-ghani but she did not spot her son, and that the photographs never indicated the boy’s father was at the compound.
“I had no probable cause to get a search warrant to go onto this property,” the sheriff said.
He said FBI officials were invited to the news conference but declined to attend. An FBI spokesman did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
Hogrefe said the “breaking point” in seeking a search warrant came when Georgia authorities received a message that may have originated within the compound that children were starving inside.
It was not clear who sent the message or how it was communicated. Georgia detectives forwarded it to the Taos County Sheriff’s Office.
Authorities returned to search the compound after interviews on Friday and Saturday led them to believe the boy might still be on the property.
“We discovered the remains yesterday on Abdul’s fourth birthday,” Hogrefe said, appearing to fight back tears.
Aleks Kostich, managing attorney in the Taos County public defender’s office, said the office was gathering information and assigning attorneys to the defendants. He declined to comment on their behalf, saying the case was in its early stages.
However, he questioned the “legal sufficiency” of the criminal complaints filed against the men and women, saying they were vague.
“I’m not sure how much investigating has been done,” he said. “I’m not sure how much law enforcement knows and how long they’ve known it for.”
