Texas' highest criminal court decided Wednesday to reject Meagan Work's request to toss out the statements she made to police after the 2014 death of her 2-year-old son, Colton Turner, according to KVUE's news partners at the Austin American-Statesman.
Colton's body was found in a shallow grave in southeast Austin on Sept. 12, 2014 days after police began searching for him.
The Court of Criminal Appeals upheld a 2016 decision by the Austin-based Third Court of Appeals that allowed prosecutors to introduce during a trial statements Work made to Cedar Park police during 26 hours of questioning about the disappearance of Colton.
Before the Third Court of Appeals made that decision, a Travis County district judge ruled that Cedar Park police illegally arrested Work when she made the statements. The third Court ruled that the arrest was legal because it was apparent that she had lied to investigators when she said her son was with a friend out of town.
Police said Work and Michael Turner -- Work's boyfriend -- admitted to burying Colton after he died from a seizure. Family and friends said that they had not seen the boy since July 2014 and that he was covered in scrapes and bruises the last time they saw him.
Work has been charged with injury to a child and tampering with evidence. Turner pleaded guilty in 2016 to injury to a child by omission and two counts of tampering with physical evidence, and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Turner was not Colton’s biological father, but was helping to raise him.
