Three-year-old Francillon Pierre was reported missing from North Las Vegas, Nevada on August 2, 1986. His mom and stepmother, Amy Luster and Mahaleel “Lee” Luster, said he disappeared that day from a swap meet.
Thing is, most of the others who were at the swap meet don’t remember seeing him there, and in fact no one outside the family had seen him in a week at least, maybe two weeks. Furthermore, Amy and Lee had already been charged with felony child abuse for severely beating Francillon the previous year. (Why he was returned to their custody I don’t know.)
The case stagnated until 2017, when the police decided to re-examine the evidence they had. In 2019, Amy was charged with her son’s murder. And yesterday the case was settled with a plea bargain, although not a very satisfactory one in my opinion.
Amy (who now goes by Amy Fleming) pleaded no contest to manslaughter. What that means is that she is acknowledging she would probably get convicted if she took the case to trial, but she is still refusing to admit guilt.
And the maximum term she’s facing? Two years. Not even the length of little Francillon’s short life. And Lee? He’s free as far as I know. He hasn’t been charged in this case at all.
I think it’s unlikely the child’s body will ever be recovered. Certainly Amy has no reason to say where she put it. Per this article, Lee said Francillon was in Lake Mead. Which doesn’t help much; Lake Mead is a massive reservoir over 500 feet deep, with 247 square miles of surface water.
The Charley Project Blog 