Local Texas baseball team honors Maleah Davis with financial donation instead of symbolic gesture
Find out how they plan to remember the 4-year old who died.
Although Maleah Davis' funeral was held on Saturday, tributes for the 4-year-old continue to pour in with the Sugar Land Skeeters baseball team announcing plans to honor her by donating proceeds from ticket purchases.
Although the home going service for Maleah Davis was held on Saturday, tributes for the 4-year-old continue to pour in. The Sugar Land Skeeters baseball team have announced plans to honor Davis at Constellation Field Tuesday evening by donating proceeds from ticket purchases, Click2Houston.com reports.
Initially, the Skeeters had been planning on doing a balloon release ahead of the game, but last night the team confirmed that the release had been canceled.
Skeeters General Manager Tyler Stamm issued the following statement: “We have confirmed with the event organizers that we will NOT be releasing balloons prior to tomorrow’s game. We will still be honoring Maleah before the game in a different fashion.”
READ MORE: The Maleah Davis Case: 6 Things to know about the 4-year-old’s mysterious disappearance
The team wanted to do more that just a sympbolic gesture and have decided to pay tribute to the slain child by donating proceeds from Tuesday’s game to Child Advocates, an organization dedicated to abused children. Tickets can be purchased at Sugarlandskeeters.com using the promo code “MALEAH.”
As theGrio previously reported, Davis was reported missing while in the care of Darion Vence, the ex-fiancé of her mother Brittany Bowens. Vence, 26, initially claimed to have been attacked by three “Hispanic” men while on his way to pick Davis’ mother up from the airport. According to his account of the alleged abduction, he heard a “popping sound,” similar to that of a blown tire, while traveling with Davis and his 1-year-old son to George Bush International Airport.
When he pulled over, Vence claims another vehicle, containing three male passengers, approached his car and one of them commented that “Maleah looks very nice, looks very sweet.”
Vence told authorities that he was then knocked unconscious by one of the men and when he woke up, little Maleah was gone. Investigators aren’t buying his story, most especially because Vence has changed his tale multiple times throughout questioning. He was ultimately arrested on suspicion of “tampering with evidence, namely a corpse” and is being held on $45,000 bond.
Davis’ remains were discovered May 31 after Vence admitted to local activist Quanell X that the child was dead and he left her body near the side of a road in Arkansas.
The Houston girl loved “My Little Pony,” and for her funeral, Davis’ birth father, Craig Davis Jr., teamed with Trey Ganem’s SoulShine Industries of Texas to create a casket decorated with a blue cartoon pony, which Maleah is pictured riding.
“Maleah’s favorite color was pink and she loved My Little Pony, all the girly things one could imagine,” her obituary said.
U.S. Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, spoke at the service and described Maleah as “America’s child.”
READ MORE: Mother of missing Texas girl heckled after canceled hearing
Her funeral service was held at the Crossing Community Church over the weekend and some of the those gathered wore pink, along with rubber pink bracelets that read “Fly high angel.” The funeral home, according to its website, collected an additional $2,355, The Houston Chronicle reports.
Mayor Sylvester Turner noted that “This was not a sad funeral. I do believe very strongly that because of Maleah more children are being protected, being loved, being nurtured than ever before.”
