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Raleigh police: Human remains found in northern Wake County

Police searching for the body of a 2-year-old boy reported missing Wednesday said late Friday that detectives, with assistance from dive crews from Apex, have found human remains in northern Wake County.

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Tristan Blue, missing Raleigh child
RALEIGH, N.C. — Police searching for the body of a 2-year-old boy reported missing two days ago said late Friday that detectives, with assistance from dive crews from Apex, have found human remains in northern Wake County.

A spokeswoman for the Raleigh Police Department said the remains were found in Beaver Dam Lake, northeast of Raleigh. She did not say when they were recovered, only that they have been sent to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for identification and testing.

Tristan Matthew Blue, who was two months shy of his third birthday, has been missing since Wednesday when, according to police, family members reported him missing from their southwest Raleigh apartment.

The boys' parents, Steven Daniel Blue and Briana Loriel Dangerfield, were arrested Thursday morning – his father on a charge of murder and his mother on charges of child abuse, accessory after the fact of murder, altering or destroying evidence and failing to notify law enforcement of the death of her son.

Authorities haven't provided many other details about the crime or said what a possible motive might have been.

An arrest warrant charging Dangerfield, however, indicates she allegedly left the boy unattended in their home while she went to work.

And in a recording released earlier Friday, an unidentified woman called 911, saying she worked overnight and that when she woke up around noon on Wednesday, the boy was gone.

"I woke up – I don't know, I guess maybe 15 minutes ago. The front door was open," she said in the 1:11 p.m. call. "There was a package outside, and the 3-year-old was not in the house."

Steven Blue, 31, of 5416 Portree Place, Apt. 1, remained jailed without bond at the Wake County Detention Center Friday night. Dangerfield was initially jailed under a $100,000 bond, but it was increased to $1 million.

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