Destiny, 9, was found in the canal Tuesday afternoon while her younger sister, 7-year-old Daysha, was found Tuesday evening.
Tinessa Hogan, of Lauderhill, has been taken into custody after her two young daughters, Destiny and Daysha, were found dead and floating in a Florida canal a day after she had reportedly been seen by several neighbors offering to baptize kids in that canal.
Investigators are still unsure of whether the information is related but confirmed, "We are definitely treating it as if it was a criminal investigation," said Lauderhill Lt. Mike Bigwood.
Hogan, who has been named a person of interest by the authorities, has not been charged, the Associated Press reported.
Around noon on Tuesday, neighbors spotted 9-year-old Destiny’s body in the canal that runs directly behind several homes. Seven-year-old Daysha’s was found nearby several hours later, around 9 p.m. Tuesday.
Authorities have not yet determined how they died or how they ended up in the water, but said they had been in the canal for a while.
“It shocked me. I froze, then I started to cry,” their neighbor Lawana Johnson, who discovered one of their bodies, said according to CBS News.
When Destiny’s body was found, one witness told the 911 dispatcher, “I can’t tell if it’s a mannequin head, I mean a mannequin body or a body that’s been in the water for some days.”
Destiny had been wearing a shirt with the word “Dance” in rainbow lettering. Her younger sister Daysha was wearing flowered pajama pants, authorities said.
The day before their bodies were discovered in the canal, another neighbor, Marie Williams, said she spotted Hogan with her daughters swimming in the canal in the late afternoon, the Miami Herald reported.
Hogan, also known as Precious, had reportedly been carrying a bible, and offered to baptize Williams’ own young children, the Miami Herald reported. Williams declined and asked her kids to come inside, she told the Herald.
Williams said, “I was more concerned for her. I should have been more cautious,” according to the Miami Herald.
