Guilty Verdict For Dad Whose Baby's Remains Found On PATH Tracks

JERSEY CITY, NJ — The father of a toddler girl whose remains were found in a suitcase on the PATH tracks in Jersey City was found guilty by a Hudson County jury this Tuesday. A jury found Travis Plummer, 38, of Richmond, Virginia, guilty of one count of unlawful concealment of human remains.

This charge normally carries a sentence of five to 10 years in state prison. However, because of Plummer's prior criminal record, he could face between 10 to 20 years.

As Patch previously reported, the toddler girl had cocaine in her system, according to an autopsy performed by the state Regional Medical Examiner's Office, who also determined that Te'Myah Layauna Plummer died because unspecified violence and cocaine intoxication.

Forensic investigators say Te’Myah died at some point late in the summer of 2017, when her father first took her from her mother's house. Hudson County Prosecutor Esther Suarez said her detectives do not think the baby died in Jersey City. A law enforcement source told NJ.com that even though the autopsy ruled her death a homicide, because police were unable to determine where she died or exactly when, they were unable to bring murder charges in New Jersey.

The baby girl was born May 19, 2016. Police say in August 2017, when the girl was 2,Plummer took his daughter from where she was staying with her mother.

The mother, Teshauna Cooper, told a news outlet in Richmond that Travis sent her to the store to get a soda that night and when she got back, her toddler girl was gone.

He told her he had sent the child to live with a friend's grandmother in North Carolina, telling Cooper he did so because he didn’t think she could raise the girl and wanted to wait until “we got more situated here.”

She said she was afraid to ask further questions because he would hit her. She also waited one month to report the baby missing, NJ 101.5 reported.

Since that night, police in Richmond, Virginia had been searching for Te'Myah and her father for months.

Eight months later, on April 11, 2018, Te’Myah’s body was discovered by Port Authority employees on the PATH tracks in Jersey City.

Rather, detectives say her father concealed her body in a suitcase, which he brought to Jersey City on November 1, 2017, and then hid in a garage for four months.

Plummer was staying with friends in Jersey City, and Jersey City police went to the friend's home last March searching for the girl. They say Plummer ran out the back of the home that day. Prosecutors say at some point Plummer went back to the house, grabbed the suitcase and left it near the Tonnelle Avenue bridge, where it sat for a month near the tracks before PATH workers found it.

Plummer fled to Miami and then Puerto Rico. He was arrested in San Juan, Puerto Rico, about one week after his daughter's body was found.

Richmond police could feasibly bring murder charges against Plummer, but it remains unknown if they are planning to do so.

He will be sentenced on May 17. NJ 101.5 also reported that Plummer was implicated in the death of his 8-month-old son, who died in a bathtub in 2005. He served a year in jail as part of a plea deal in the neglect case.

Plummer has continually pleaded not guilty in the charges against him.