The Houston Police Department said they were called to an address at 7800 Grow Lane to reports of a deceased child.
Family members are said to have found the girl after going round the home to check on her, having not seen the child for days.
According to Fox 26, the family member looked inside the closet after noticing a foul smell emanating from it.
“Northwest and Homicide are at 7800 Grow. Five year old female was found deceased inside an apartment,” the Houston Police Department tweeted.
The child’s mother was taken in for questioning but so far no arrests have been made during the investigation.
“The information we have right now is that the body appears to have been deceased for several days,” Houston Police Department Lieutenant Larry Crowson told reporters at the scene, via KTRK.
Crowson said it is still too early to determine the cause of death and investigators are still waiting for a medical examiner to perform an autopsy of the body. The girl’s mother allegedly told police that the child had died after ingesting chemicals on August 27.
“We’re not sure the circumstances we don’t know if it’s an accidental death or intentional death, that will be part of the investigation,” Crowson said.
“As far as the chemicals, we just don’t know at this point there. Yet again that’ll be part of the medical examiner’s investigation.”
It is unclear why the mother did not call emergency services to notify them that her child had died several days ago.
“It’s very troubling,” Crowson added. “No matter how the child died, whether it’s an accidental or intentional death, for a body to be in a closet for several days. That’s just that’s pretty unthinkable.”
Crowson said police believe there may have been one male living at the apartment and they are hoping to speak to him as a potential witness.
Police have not revealed the identity of the mother or the 5-year-old girl.
“It’s hard for the officers to deal with something like that,” Crowson said about the discovery of the child’s body. “The officers they have families too. Unfortunately our officers have to deal with things like this pretty regularly so it’s one of the things they have to do.”
