3 arrested after 16-year-old boy found dead, wrapped in a blanket in Kingman

KINGMAN, AZ (3TV/CBS 5) - Two Kingman parents and a man were arrested on Thursday after a 16-year-old boy was found dead. According to Anita Mortensen with the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office, the teen’s parents, Amber-Leah Valentine and Jon Imes, called deputies on Feb. 25 and said their son had run away from home. They had seen him the day before. On Feb. 28, deputies were called out to Anson Smith and Indian Canyon Road after the body of a teenage boy was found wrapped in a blanket behind a stone wall in the area. Mortensen said when deputies went to the scene, they didn’t know it was the remains of the 16-year-old. “It’s a very traveled location, so for them to put the body there, it was very strange ‘cause that is a very very traveled area with a lot of traffic,” Mortensen said.

On Thursday, Valentine called the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office to report that she had just freed her 14-year-old daughter from captivity by her roommates Richard Pounds, 34, and Shioban Gujda, 39. Investigators say Valentine and her daughter were taken to a hospital, where Valentine told deputies that she and Imes had disposed of their son’s body behind the wall. She told officers she knew he was dead when they reported him missing. Later, Imes and Valentine were arrested on various charges, including abandonment and concealing a dead body.

Investigators then spoke with Valentine’s 14-year-old daughter, who told them that Pounds had shot her in the eye with a BB gun and told deputies about other abuse that had happened to her while living in the house. “Any call that we get that involves a child of any age is extremely disturbing,” Mortensen said. “Our deputies, our detectives, they are fathers, they’re mothers. They have their own kids and going to calls like this is always extremely disturbing that someone could do something or be in the same home as something like this that is happening to their own children.”

Pounds was arrested and booked for felony child abuse and aggravated assault. Gujda was questioned and released. An autopsy was conducted on the 16-year-old’s body, and the results are pending.

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