![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1776791889_121_.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\nPolice have charged a blood relative in the death of slain Wilkes-Barre teen La’Niyah Clark. <\/p>\n
La\u2019Niyah’s biological aunt, Bobbiejo Etzel, 37, is accused of actively hiding La’Niyah before holding a plastic bag over her head and suffocating her, Luzerne County District Attorney Sam Sanguedolce said.<\/p>\n
La’Niyah, then 14, was reported missing by her family on Jan. 17. <\/p>\n
Police have determined that Etzel killed La’Niyah on Feb. 11, the DA said.<\/p>\n
He said La’Niyah was being restrained in a closet and abused before Etzel killed her.<\/p>\n
“The defendant was paranoid that she would be found with LaLa and go to jail,” he said of Etzel.<\/p>\n
She is to be charged with an open count of homicide, and Sanguedolce said investigators believe it is a first-degree homicide case.<\/p>\n
She also is to be charged with kidnapping and abuse of a corpse, the DA said.<\/p>\n
“The investigation is ongoing. There are people that are under investigation,” Sanguedolce said, adding that he could not elaborate.<\/p>\n
Etzel is to be arraigned later today.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A large photo of La’Nyiah ‘Lala’ Clark with angel wings was set out for Saturday night’s vigil in Wilkes-Barre. <\/p>\n
PFA filed in January<\/p>\n
The teen, who was deaf and wore two hearing aids, was adopted by Antoine Clark and Ameerah Woods in 2020 and lived with them in South Wilkes-Barre.<\/p>\n
Investigators have said she had a history of running away, and at one point “fled from her home to her aunt,” Etzel.<\/p>\n
A Protection from Abuse (PFA) order issued by the Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas on Jan. 13 directed Etzel not to have contact with La\u2019Niyah, investigators said in March.<\/p>\n
La’Niyah was “understandably” upset by that order, Sanguedolce said.<\/p>\n
The DA said Etzel made false statements to police and on social media during the process.<\/p>\n
Sanguedolce said information about La’Niyah was entered into the National Criminal Information Center database on Jan. 17.<\/p>\n
Investigators followed numerous leads as part of the investigation, Sanguedolce said, including making contact with Etzel.<\/p>\n
He also said there were 17 search warrants filed in the case and hours of surveillance video reviewed that helped track the path Etzel allegedly took to dump La’Niyah’s body.<\/p>\n
“The work that was done in this case was second to none,” Sanguedolce said, acknowledging criticism of the process, including on social media.<\/p>\n
“No one in that room thought that this was just any case,” the DA said of the investigators he worked with on the case.<\/p>\n
“Justice of course is not measured by speed but by results,” Sanguedolce said of the process that went into the investigation.<\/p>\n
“The detectives live daily with the horrors of this case,” Wilkes-Barre Mayor George Brown said, critizing “falsehoods” spread on social media about the case.<\/p>\n
Etzel and her mother also made false statements to police when questioned, Sanguedolce said.<\/p>\n
Etzel transported La’Niyah’s body in a plastic tote to an area off Thayer Street where she dumped the remains, the DA said.<\/p>\n
This is a breaking story and will be updated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police have charged a blood relative in the death of slain Wilkes-Barre teen La’Niyah Clark. La\u2019Niyah’s biological aunt,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":597952,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,451,3,452,453],"class_list":["post-597951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}