The stepfather of 2-year-old King Hill is speaking out for the first time in an exclusive interview with FOX 29 after the babysitter was charged in the little boy's death.
www.fox29.com
Exclusive interview with 2-year-old King Hill's stepfather: "I feel betrayed"
The stepfather of 2-year-old King Hill, who handed the boy off to a babysitter, Tianna Parks, now charged with King's murder, is speaking out for the first time in an exclusive interview with FOX 29.
Marvin Reese says Philadelphia police told him they may never find the body of King, who was reported missing back on July 9.
He says he still has not stopped looking or giving up hope.
"I'm still thinking, waiting, my phone is going to ring telling me 'We got your son,he's here,'" he says. "It's like I feel like, as a parent, I feel like I let him down."
Reese walked us through the two years of trust he says he built with babysitter, Tianna Parks, before he allowed her to watch King for an extended period of time.
Reese has a daughter with King's biological mother. Over the past two years, King's mother would request for Reese to watch King or he would offer to help out. He says King was a handful as a baby.
"I was just working on him, developing him as a young man," he says. " I still treated him as my own son, I never looked at him any different."
Reese said he would often bring King to his gym in West Philadelphia where he worked as a boxing coach and where Parks would provide yoga and stretching exercises for the boxers.
Reese says eventually Parks would take King for longer periods of time. He says if he did not see King in person every day while in her care, he would through video chat or social media.
He could not remember a specific date, but says the last time he saw Parks and King was at the end of June. He says he bought them food before Parks planned to take King to a park.
In the two weeks after that, Reese said everything changed.
"I'm going to her house and I'm calling her phone directly in front of her house. It was always an excuse: I'm not here, I'm not there, and I'm like, I'm sitting in front of your house trying to get my son," he says.
"I said hey, send me some pictures or something, and I never got the pictures."
"From that point, at my understanding, she blocked my number at that point."
To this day, he says he wishes he could talk to Parks to find out what went wrong. He says the two had a strictly business relationship and he feels completely betrayed.
"You would've never seen that coming," he says. "Who does something to a 2-year-old child? Nobody messes with kids. Nobody."
Reese and his family and King's mother, Amber, held separate birthday parties for King on Wednesday.
He was supposed to turn three.