Toledo Police Chief Michael Troendle praised the work of his detectives for finding the body of slain 13-year-old Keimani Latigue at an abandoned, burned-out house in East Toledo on Monday, nearly one week after she was reported missing.
“We found her through investigative work, interviews, and running down leads,” Chief Troendle said Friday in a sit-down interview with The Blade. “Eventually, detectives were able to put together an idea of where she might be.”
They narrowed her location to a house on Miami Street.
“It was a specific house — not that specific address — but a general description of a house. Our detectives went out on the street working Miami Street, came across the abandoned house, and were able to find her,” Chief Troendle said.
Toledo police are waiting for Darnell Jones to be released from a Columbus-area hospital and transferred to Toledo to be arraigned on charges of murder, abduction, and felonious assault his daughter Keimani’s disappearance and death.
But first he will be arraigned in Columbus for felonious assault on a police officer.
“After that, the process of bringing him back here to face our charges will take place,” Chief Troendle said.
Jones is recovering in the hospital after being shot Tuesday by Columbus police when they tried to arrest him for the murder and abduction warrants out of Toledo.
Toledo detectives were able to conduct a thorough interview of Jones in the hospital, the chief said.
“We have to vet the information we were given and run down some more leads. Once we put the entire investigation together, we’ll sit down with prosecutors and figure out what kind of charges we’re going to have and what we’re going to do moving forward,” he said.
Chief Troendle would not say whether Jones confessed to detectives during their interviews with him.
“I can’t get into all those details. That’s still part of the active investigation we are continuously working on,” he said.
Keimani’s grandmother, whom she lived with, reported her missing March 18. Jones, who was the last person to see her alive, is the top suspect, Chief Troendle said. Additional suspects are possible while the investigation continues.
“With a case like this, obviously there’s different prongs we’re investigating. I’m not saying whether or not there is another suspect. But we’re definitely running down every lead to make sure that there’s nobody else,” he said. “That way we have a good solid case when we do go to trial, and we make sure all those involved will be properly prosecuted.”
The chief said he was told Keimani’s grandmother, Dorothy Latigue, was at work when Keimani disappeared.
When asked whether Ms. Latigue is being investigated, Chief Troendle paused for several seconds before answering.
“I have nothing that says she’s being investigated,” he said. “Is there a possibility things could come through from the investigations that might tie her in? I can’t tell you that for sure. Right now, I don’t know of any charges on her. But the investigation is not over yet. It is still very early.”
There were no previous calls to police from Ms. Latigue’s home regarding allegations of abuse, Chief Troendle said.
“To my knowledge, and we looked into it, we don’t have any calls from her house. We had one call from Keimani’s school that she had not yet been picked up,” Chief Troendle said.
Once Keimani was reported missing, police collected information from family and friends to determine whether she was a runaway.
“We try to get information based on the caller, friends, neighbors — anything we can to try and understand if the person ran away, is at a friend’s house,” he said. “The fact she hadn’t run away before is one of the things we focused on and made sure we were doing a full-court press from the very beginning.”
Once it was determined she was not a runaway, the police department sent out information on their social media accounts seeking information on her whereabouts
“When you start talking about putting out information, we start running posters of the missing, and we continuously put those out there asking for the public’s help in trying to find them or provide information about them. That’s what happened in the initial days with Keimani,” Chief Troendle said.
Police did not send out an Amber Alert because Keimani’s case did not meet the criteria to do so, Chief Troendle said.
“This case didn’t fit the profile of an Amber Alert. Talking to the family, there were no allegations she was abducted by a family member and taken out of state. It didn’t appear to be that at all,” he said. “We didn’t see any utility for the specific circumstances of this case that would actually return any value to us in the investigation.”
Many people have blasted city officials for moving too slowly tearing down abandoned, deteriorated buildings, which often attract crime. Chief Troendle said there are too many out there to keep pace.
“Our community service officers are out there in neighborhoods all the time reporting abandoned structures, trying to get them boarded up as fast as we can,” he said. “I know everyone wants them torn down. The land bank and our code enforcement does work on that. We’re tearing down a lot of houses. Unfortunately, we can’t tear down every abandoned building.”
Toledo City Councilman George Sarantou, who is on the city’s Public Safety and Criminal Justice Reform Committee, agrees.
“There are so many houses that need to be torn down,” Mr. Sarantou said. “Toledo has a list of 1,000 abandoned houses scheduled to be demolished. It takes one day to tear down a house. Some people have been calling the city for four years now to get an abandoned building in their neighborhood torn down.
“It’s impossible at this point to keep up unless we can get additional state or federal money. It’s a real problem,” he added.
David Mann, president and CEO of the Lucas County Land Bank, agreed that it’s a problem.
His nonprofit buys vacant, abandoned, and tax-delinquent properties and returns them to productive use.
“We work closely with the city to help it deal with nuisance buildings, some of which are sites where these awful tragedies could happen in. All of us could continue to do a good job to help identify resources and remove buildings that property owners will not care for,” Mr. Mann said.
The family, in partnership with Brown Legacy Memorial, is finalizing details for both an invitation-only private service and a public service where the broader community will have the opportunity to pay their respects and celebrate her life, according to Brown Legacy Memorial's Facebook page. Additional information regarding these services will be shared soon.
First Published March 28, 2025, 9:49 p.m.
