A dead boy's remains were found Monday at a makeshift compound in Amalia, New Mexico, where investigators had been searching for missing Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj Editor’s note: On Thursday, New Mexico officials confirmed that missing Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj‘s remains had been found on a compound in Amalia. The original article about the discovery of his remains, published on Aug. 8, is below. A dead boy’s remains were found Monday at a New Mexico compound where investigators, who had been searching for a missing 3-year-old from Georgia, instead found his father and 15 other people last week, PEOPLE confirms. Get push notifications with news, features and more. The group of 16 included 11 children and five adults (who have all since been arrested). They appeared to be living in squalid conditions. The remains have not yet been positively identified but authorities raised the possibility that they are those of missing Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj, who disappeared after his father, Siraj Wahhaj, took him to a park in December, police have said. Visibly emotional, Taos County Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe announced the remains had been found at a news conference on Tuesday, CNN reports. He described them as those of a “young boy” but did not provide further identifying information. “We discovered the remains yesterday, on Abdul’s fourth birthday,” he said. They “have been turned over to the office of medical investigation,” Hogrefe said. Local prosecutor Donald Gallegos tells PEOPLE that while preliminary testing will confirm the age and sex of the remains, conclusive identification could take additional time if “it requires DNA testing,” and he noted that it is unclear if dental records are available to aid authorities. “We are pretty sure it could be [Abdul-Ghani], but we aren’t positive yet,” he says. A cause of death has not been determined, according to Gallegos, but he says that “hopefully we will get information by the end of the week.” abdul-ghani-wahhaj Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj | Credit: Clayton County Police Department siraj-wahhaj-1 The compound where 16 people were found in Amalia, New Mexico, last week | Credit: Taos County Sheriff's Office siraj-wahhaj-2 The compound where 16 people were found in Amalia, New Mexico, last week | Credit: Taos County Sheriff's Office Gallegos says the remains were found in the back of a tunnel at the compound, in a chamber, and that their condition was “consistent with a type of ritual burial.” (Sheriff Hogrefe previously described the suspects as religious extremists.) It’s unclear how long the remains were in the tunnel before being discovered, says Gallegos, district attorney for the the Eighth Judicial District. “When they did the initial search [last week] they were looking for the child,” he explains. “When they came back they developed more information to get another search warrant and searched additional areas, and that is where they found it.” Abudl-Ghani’s mother reported him missing on Dec. 10 in Clayton County, saying then that she last saw him on Dec. 1 when he left to go to the park with his dad. His mom said he had seizures and cognitive and developmental delays and could not walk, and Clayton County police did not know if he had medication with him necessary “to prevent … a serious medical emergency,” they said in December. Abdul-Ghani and Wahhaj were next seen a few days after the boy was reported missing, following a car wreck on Dec. 13 in Chilton County, Alabama, according to Clayton County police. • Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter. They were traveling with five children and two adults and the group said at the time that they were going to New Mexico to go camping, police said. A truck registered to Lucas Morton — another man at the makeshift compound last week — picked them up after the wreck. Wahhaj was eventually traced to Amalia, New Mexico, according to the Albuquerque Journal. He and Morton were found at the compound there with the 11 children and three women, believed to be the mothers of the living kids, according to Sheriff Hogrefe. The FBI had recently surveilled the property — which is ringed by tires and an earthen berm and includes a buried travel trailer — but said there was insufficient probable cause to enter, the Taos County Sheriff’s Office said Saturday. But the receipt of a message apparently sent from inside the compound convinced Hogrefe “that we couldn’t wait on another agency to step up and we had to go check this out as soon as possible,” he said this weekend. The message read, in part, “We are starving and need food and water.” siraj-wahhaj-3 The compound where 16 people were found in Amalia, New Mexico, last week | Credit: Taos County Sheriff's Office siraj-wahhaj-4 Siraj Wahhaj (left) and Lucas Morton | Credit: Taos County Sheriff's Office Once at the compound, “The only food we saw were a few potatoes and a box of rice in the filthy trailer,” Hogrefe said in a previous news release. “But what was most surprising and heartbreaking,” he said, “was when the team located a total of five adults and 11 children that looked like Third World country refuges not only with no food or fresh water, but no shoes, personal hygiene and basically dirty rags for clothing.” All five adults — Morton, Wahhaj and the women, Jany Leveille, Hujrah Wahhaj and Subhannah Wahhaj — were arrested. They each face 11 counts of child abuse, a third-degree felony. Morton is additionally charged with harboring a fugitive and Wahhaj is charged with custodial interference. They have all pleaded not guilty. Their attorneys, in speaking with PEOPLE, have argued the prosecution’s case as presented so far is weak. The children recovered alive last week were placed with the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department, according to authorities. “We all gave the kids our water and what snacks we had — it was the saddest living conditions and poverty I have seen,” Sheriff Hogrefe said Saturday.<doc-sep>Joe Henke, Donesha Aldridge WXIA-TV, Atlanta TAOS COUNTY, N.M. — A young boy's remains have been found on a compound in New Mexico where authorities were looking for a missing Jonesboro, Georgia boy. Authorities said at a news conference that they have not positively identified the remains as missing Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj. The remains, which were given to a medical investigations office, were found on Monday, Abdul's 4th birthday. "The child was found on the inner portion of the compound," Taos County Sheriff Jerry L. Hogrefe said. He had previously described deplorable conditions there: "Children that looked like third-world country refugees with no food or fresh water, no shoes, and basically dirty rags for clothing.” Abdul-Ghani was allegedly abducted by his father, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, in December 2017. The mother of Abdul-Ghani called police on Dec. 10 and told authorities that she hadn't seen her son since December, when Siraj said he was taking him to the park. Abdul-Ghani was 3 years old at the time. Sheriff Hogrefe said in May, they learned about a warrant out of Georgia issued for Siraj, but they didn't have a specific location in New Mexico of where he was. Warrants for Siraj's arrest claimed he took his son to perform an exorcism on the child and was denying Abdul-Ghani medications. The sheriff said when they learned about a possible compound, the FBI conducted surveillance of the area. Abdul-Ghani was never identified in the surveillance. They received a break in the case last week. More:11 children rescued from 'third-world'-like New Mexico compound, missing toddler's father arrested "Last Thursday, when a message we reasonably believe came from a occupant of the compound or somebody with great knowledge of the compound sent a message saying said basically, we are starving and the children are staving, or something along those lines," he said. On Friday in Amalia, New Mexico, Siraj was arrested with another Atlanta man, Lucas Morten after local and state law enforcement officials raided a compound. Three women were also arrested and are facing 11 counts of child abuse. During the raid, Abdul-Ghani was not found among the children. Family confirmed to 11Alive that Hujrah, and Subhannah are Siraj's sisters and one of them is married to Morten. The third woman, Jany, has children with Siraj. Sheriff Hogrefe said they worked with other agencies and believed that the missing could still be on the compound. They gained a warrant and went back to the property and found the remains Monday. "The investigation is still ongoing both federally and on the state level," the sheriff said. More:'Daddy, I'm sorry:' Texas boy pleaded with father before slayings, court records say More:'The child was screaming': 4-year-old struggled as mother tossed her into Florida river<doc-sep>
The identity of the boy has not been confirmed, authorities said. The remains of a young boy have been found on a filthy New Mexico compound where authorities rescued 11 children last week, according to police. Authorities swarmed the remote property in Amalia last week after securing a warrant to search for a missing 3-year-old boy who police believed was kidnapped by his father, 39-year-old Siraj Wahhaj. The remains of the boy have not been identified since being found Monday on the "inner portion" of the property, said Taos County Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe at a press conference Tuesday afternoon. Authorities in Georgia issued a warrant for Wahhaj's arrest in mid-May, but there was "no immediate information that he was in New Mexico," Hogrefe said. The FBI and Georgia law enforcement eventually gained information that Wahhaj was living in Taos County, and "information began to trickle in about a new building" in the area, Hogrefe said. Once authorities became aware of the compound, they began efforts to identify people living there through surveillance, but neither Wahhaj nor the boy were identified by those images, Hogrefe said. The "breaking point" to enter the compound came on Thursday, when a text message believed to have been sent from an occupant of the compound -- or someone with "great knowledge" of the compound -- stated that there were starving children there. Georgia law enforcement became aware of the text and forwarded the information to the Taos County Sheriff's Office, Hogrefe said. Law enforcement then "had enough probable cause for a search warrant" to search for Wahhaj and the boy on the property, Hogrefe said. Wahhaj was located upon entry and taken into custody, as was another adult male who was on the compound, Lucas Morten, Hogrefe said. Deputies also found three women and 11 other children living in squalor with little food and no clean water, Hogrefe told ABC News over the weekend. The women are believed to be the mothers of the children. The children "looked like third-world country refugees," Hogrefe said. They had no shoes and were wearing rags for clothing. "I've been a cop for 30 years. I've never seen anything like this. Unbelievable," Hogrefe said. "These children were hungry, they were thirsty, they were filthy." Initially, the women were briefly detained for questioning but not criminally charged so that state child services could interview them for their own investigation, Hogrefe said. They were later arrested after authorities executed a second search warrant on the compound on Sunday, and each of the five adults were charged with 11 counts of felony child abuse, Hogrefe said. None of the adults would give a statement about the whereabouts of the missing 3-year-old. "It's obvious to me that they were brainwashed and feel great intimidation from the men that were in control of this facility," Hogrefe said of the women and children. The 11 children are now in the custody of child protective services, said Secretary of New Mexico Children, Youth & Families Department Monique Jacobson. They are "safe and being cared for," Jacobson said. The property the "makeshift compound" sits on does not belong to the occupants, Hogrefe said. Surrounded by tires and an earthen berm, the property also lacked electricity and running water. The FBI and authorities in Georgia indicated to the sheriff's office that there could be weapons on the compound, and deputies learned that there had been a shooting range installed there, Hogrefe said. Both Wahhaj and Morten initially refused to follow verbal commands when law enforcement arrived at the compound, and Wahhaj remained holed up inside a small, rickety trailer with an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle, five 30-round magazines and four handguns, Hogrefe said. Deputies had to "physically" take Wahhaj down to place him in custody, and he and Morten, both from Georgia, were arrested and charged with child abduction and harboring a fugitive, respectively.