A 6-week-old baby is dead and the father faces charges related to the homicide.
This comes almost 19 years after the child's father was convicted of murder, and released early.
Wednesday, the suspect was arrested in a home not far from where the infant was discovered.
The family says this could have been a preventable death had the police taken them seriously when they first reported the child missing Tuesday morning.
They say when police did take them seriously on Wednesday morning, they all found out that the child's father had killed one of his own children in the past.
"Every time I've seen them together he was just holding him, loving his son and talking about the future," said Juan Keith Smiley, family of Lavion Gamble.
That's why 6-week-old Lavion Gamble's family is shocked about what happened Wednesday.
At 4:00 p.m., police tracked 44-year-old Robert W. Long, Jr. and his mother's car, to the 5500 block of Ridgecrest Road in Newburg.
Inside a black SUV, Lavion Gamble was dead.
Police wouldn't describe his injuries, only saying they're waiting for an autopsy. Long was taken into custody at a nearby house. Police say their investigation started at 10:00 a.m. Wednesday morning.
"The Crimes Against Children Unit was notified of possibly a missing child and a father of the child. About 12 noon this afternoon we were able to enter that information as a missing person report at that point," said LMPD Spokesperson Dwight Mitchell.
But the family says they tried to file a report Tuesday morning at 10:00 a.m.
Because the last time anyone had seen father and son together was Monday night at 7:00 p.m. They say police gave them the runaround all day and no one would file a report.
An Amber Alert was never issued by state police and neither was a notification from Metro Police through Operation Return Home.
But Wednesday morning, when a Crimes Against Children's Unit detective met with the infant's family, she informed them that Long, had been convicted of killing one of his other children in 1991. Sentenced to 35 years, but released early in 2007.
It's something family says police would have found sooner, if they took the family seriously from start. They say they had no idea of his past and there was nothing in character that warned them he was dangerous.
"That's my sister and I love her to death and when she says I love this man, you accept him. And we all did that as a family. Now we're all looking back and saying, 'why?'" said Smiley.
Long has been charged with menacing, tampering with evidence and abuse of a corpse.
Depending on what the autopsy shows, other charges could be filed.
