19-year-old babysitter beats & strangles 5-year-old cousin to death

A babysitter in Upstate New York bashed her five-year-old cousin in the head and strangled him to death before throwing his body over a guardrail into a ditch and covering it with snow on Thursday, police have revealed.

Tiffany Vanalstyne, 19, then allegedly called police to make up a story about little Kenneth White being kidnapped by two masked men in an effort to cover her tracks – sending authorities on a desperate search across Albany County, New York to find the boy.

‘I’m angry that we had a five-year-old killed and basically thrown away like a piece of trash. It’s sinful and it’s sad,’ Sheriff Craig Apple, who was visibly shaken by the horrific murder, said today.

Kenneth was brutally murdered Thursday afternoon as his twin sister Cheyenne and little sister Christine were playing in another room in the trailer where they lived in rural Knox, New York, police say.

Vanalstyne was charged with second-degree murder today. Her mother Brenda Vanalstyne told a judge that her daughter suffers from bipolar disorder, which she takes medication for.

Authorities have refused to comment on a possible motive for the murder.

Kenneth, Cheyenne, Christine were being cared for by their aunt Brenda after both their mother and father lost custody of the children. They lived with Brenda Vanalstyne for more than a year and she had been granted legal custody about nine moths ago.

The mother of the children lives 25 miles away in Amsterdam, New York. Their father lives in Massachusetts.

Authorities described conditions inside the red-and-white striped as dangerous and are working to make sure Kenneth’s two sisters never return there.

Police say that after a doctor’s appointment on Thursday, Brenda Vanalstyne dropped the three White children at home and left her daughter Tiffany to babysit them.

Tiffany Vanalstyne killed Kenneth just minutes after Brenda left the home on Thursday afternoon, authorities believe.

She then took his body down the road and threw it into a ditch. She covered it with snow to ensure it couldn’t be seen by passing cars, police say.

After the murder, Tiffany Vanalstyne called her mother and told her that Kenneth had been kidnapped by two masked men who barged into the trailer and pinned her to the ground.

Brenda, who was just minutes from home, told her daughter to call 911.

Police immediately initiated an Amber Alert and launched a massive search for a black pickup truck that Vanalstyne described as the getaway vehicle.

State police, the US Marshals and the FBI joined local officers in in the hunt, which began about 1.30pm.

Sheriff Apple said that as they continued to question Vanalstyne about the kidnapping, her story began to fall apart – she was inconsistent and many of the details didn’t make sense.

The search for Kenneth and the mysterious black truck continued, but detectives began to investigate Vanalstyne, as well.

Shortly before midnight, a police dog made the grim discovery. Kenneth’s body was buried in snow about 40 yards down the road from the trailer.

Sheriff Apple said the horrific Christmastime murder has rattled even veteran detectives on his police force.

His eyes welled with tears at a pretty conference today as he described how he was going to go home and hug his three sons.

Source: MailOnline