Brandon Lee Toseland (Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department)
A Las Vegas woman whose son was found dead in a freezer Tuesday says she endured months of abuse from her boyfriend, who has been arrested and charged with the boy’s death.
Las Vegas police officers arrested Brandon Lee Toseland, 35, after the woman secretly instructed her daughter to pass a note detailing the abuse to her teacher, who then forwarded it to law enforcement. The note also explained the woman had not been allowed to see her 4-year-old son, whom she last saw in December before his body was found.
Toseland was arrested Tuesday after police saw him leave his house with the mother in a vehicle in which officers also found handcuffs, Las Vegas homicide Lt. Ray Spencer said.
Stephen Stubbs, a lawyer representing the woman, said she endured months of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse and was told by Toseland that he would kill her son and her 7-year-old daughter if she ever left him.
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More than 10 weeks after she last saw her son, she resorted to sending a message with her daughter to school.
"There was never a time when her daughter was with her that she was not locked in a room, bound or handcuffed," attorney Stephen Stubbs said of the mother. "There was never an opportunity to take her daughter and run."
The attorney said the children were also abused in the home.
According to an arrest report, Toseland said he shared with the mother that the boy was dead "and said she would not be allowed to see his body because he would lose his freedom," but did not previously share the information with law enforcement or call an ambulance.
The attorney said the woman met Toseland through her deceased husband, the father of her children, who died in January 2021. Two months later, she and her children moved in with Toseland, who "slowly and methodically" dominated the home.
Toslean was being held in the Clark County Detention Center on one court of murder and two counts of kidnapping.
FOX News and the Associated Press contributed to this report.