Walmart Santa arrested after his two missing children were found buried in his back yard

During the week leading up to Christmas Day, the Effingham County Sheriff’s Office in Springfield, Georgia, made a shocking and gruesome discovery on December 20 after receiving a tip concerning a missing teenager. Deputies were dispatched to a residence on Rosebud Place around 10 p.m. after receiving a tip that a 14-year-old missing teen might be dead. That girl, 14-year-old Mary Crocker hadn’t been seen for several weeks and the person placing the tip was worried that the child was not only missing – but already dead.

Officials were dispatched to make a welfare check. Deputies questioned the adult family members living in the residence. Those adults told the deputies that the child had gone to live with her mother. Investigators became increasingly suspicious after receiving conflicting stories from the four adults living in that house.

Elwyn Crocker Sr. provided information that led investigators to search the grounds around the house. Two bodies were discovered to be buried just inside the wood line and not far from the house. The bodies belonged to the missing 14-year-old girl Mary Crocker and her brother 14-year-old Elwyn Crocker Jr.

Mary was last seen alive back in October 2018 and her brother Elwyn hadn’t been seen November 2016. Neither child ever had an official missing person’s report filed, according to the sheriff’s office. A third child was in the home, alive, and was taken to the local hospital for observation.

On December 26, MSN reported that autopsies conducted on the two deceased bodies confirmed that they were the bodies of Mary Jo Crocker and her brother Elwyn Crocker Jr. The children’s father, Elwyn Crocker Sr., who was employed as a Santa Clause at a nearby Walmart was arrested and charged with child cruelty and concealing the death of another.

Elwyn Crocker Sr. turned 50-years-old on Christmas Day.

His wife and the kids’ stepmother, Candice Crocker, 33, her mother, Kim Wright, 50, and Wright’s boyfriend, [Roy] Anthony Prater, 55, were also collared on charges of concealing a death and child cruelty. They remain in Effingham County jail without bond. ~ New York Post

The child that was found alive in the home was described as having special needs and turned over to the care of the Division of Family and Children Services. WJCL reports that the young boy suffers from both cerebral palsy and muscular dystrophy. The boy’s mother is trying to assume custody of her son.

The mother, Rebecca Self, said she found out about the deaths of her two children through social media reports. She told WJCL that the father kept her children from her for years and that he was telling the courts that she didn’t want anything to do with her kids.

“I’m still confused on that. How you gone lie to people and tell them I’m trying to kill my child when he was born, but yet you do this?”
“I’m walking out of here today with my son. If not today, this state’s not gonna like me when I come back with lawyers.” ~ per WJCL

The investigation into exactly how the two children died is still ongoing.