Prosecutors say La’Niyah Clark stayed alive for more than three weeks after she disappeared as relatives and police searched across Luzerne County.
WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — A criminal case that began as a missing child search now centers on a detailed accusation that a Wilkes-Barre aunt hid her deaf teenage niece for weeks, killed her and then tried to throw suspicion onto others before fleeing to Maryland.
Prosecutors on Tuesday laid out a timeline they say shows Bobbiejo Etzel, 37, concealed La’Niyah Clark from Jan. 17 until the teen’s death on Feb. 11, then disposed of her body between Feb. 14 and Feb. 15. The account, drawn from a lengthy affidavit, adds new detail to one of the region’s most closely watched homicide cases and reframes weeks of dead ends, false sightings and public accusations that swirled while Clark’s family searched for her.
The timeline starts before Clark disappeared. Officials said a Jan. 13 Protection From Abuse hearing ended with an order that barred Etzel from contacting the girl. Investigators said Clark, who had been adopted in 2020 by Antoine Clark and Ameerah Woods, was upset by that decision because it cut her off from her biological aunt and cousins. After the hearing, prosecutors said, Woods disciplined the teen and took away her phone and other devices, leaving Clark angry. Four days later, on Jan. 17, she disappeared from the family’s Terrace Street home. Relatives told police she had last been seen around 11 a.m., with her hair done and acting normally. By early evening, she was gone. Police entered her as a missing juvenile that night and circulated details about her hearing aids, disability and distinctive necklace.
What followed was a string of tips that seemed to point in different directions but, investigators now say, fit a pattern of concealment. On Jan. 19, Woods told police someone reported seeing Clark at a hotel on Kidder Street. Officers checked and found nothing. The next day, Plains Township police went to the Extended Stay America on Route 315 after Woods reported information suggesting Etzel had taken Clark and had her there. Police confirmed Etzel was staying at the hotel and searched the room with permission, but did not find the teen. Prosecutors now say Clark was inside and actively hiding while officers were there. Wilkes-Barre police, according to the affidavit, were not told at that stage that another department had made contact with Etzel. On Jan. 29, detectives finally reached Etzel by phone. They said she denied having Clark, denied knowing where she was and agreed to come in for an interview. She did not show up.
The affidavit says the false leads continued into February. Investigators searched apartment complexes, checked a vacant house on Caffrey Street and reviewed store video after reports that Clark had been seen in several places. None of those sightings held up. On Feb. 3, detectives again visited Etzel at the Extended Stay hotel after she missed her interview. She told them she had been sick, suggested Clark might be with another relative and refused a room search because her children were sleeping, according to the affidavit. Prosecutors later said police learned at least one statement she made that day was untrue. Officials also said Clark was moved on Feb. 8 to a home on New Alexander Street, where witness statements and evidence later showed she was held in a closet, deprived of food for up to two days, forced to use a bucket and subjected to verbal abuse. Sanguedolce said those conditions were documented through witness accounts and video evidence gathered during the investigation.
Investigators say Clark was killed on Feb. 11, even as police were still chasing rumors that she was alive. That same day, detectives spoke with Darlene Etzel, the defendant’s mother and Clark’s grandmother, at a Kingston nursing home. Prosecutors said she falsely told police she had not heard from Clark since the girl went missing and suggested the teen might be with a boyfriend. Investigators now say those statements were meant to steer police away from Bobbiejo Etzel. Days later, on Feb. 21, a body was found behind a garage on Thayer Street in South Wilkes-Barre. The location mattered because the garage was rented by Clark’s adoptive father, a fact that initially cast suspicion in that direction. Sanguedolce said the body was not immediately recognizable as Clark’s because of its condition and because important identifying items were missing. Those missing items later became evidence in the case.
Prosecutors said surveillance video helped untangle what happened next. They described footage showing a woman with a larger build and a distinctive gait pushing a wheeled cart with a heavy object inside a gray tote. Investigators worked backward from the disposal site, found the tote and matched markings on it to what appeared in the video, officials said. The cart also matched carts connected to the scene, according to prosecutors. A landlord then placed Etzel at the New Alexander Street residence tied to evidence recovered in the investigation. Authorities said items at the dump site came from that home, suggesting either carelessness or an effort to confuse detectives. After the body was found and news of the discovery became public, Etzel packed a U-Haul and moved to Maryland, prosecutors said. They described that trip as evidence of guilt. When she was arrested in Hagerstown, investigators said, they recovered Clark’s hearing aids, the necklace she was known to wear and clothing authorities believe Etzel used while disposing of the body.
The final piece of the case, according to prosecutors, came from a witness found after police searched the New Alexander Street property and nearby dumpster area. That witness told investigators she saw Etzel kill Clark by suffocating her with a plastic bag, Sanguedolce said. Prosecutors also said Etzel acknowledged taking the body from the house and returning later, though she denied causing Clark’s death. The teen’s cause of death was officially confirmed on April 20 as asphyxiation. Etzel was arraigned Tuesday on charges of criminal homicide, kidnapping and abuse of a corpse and ordered held without bail. She had already been in custody on lesser charges tied to custody interference. Authorities said the investigation is not over and that other people remain under review, though they did not name additional suspects or say when any new charges might come.
As of Wednesday, the case stood at a new stage: the missing person search had become a homicide prosecution built on surveillance, recovered property, witness testimony and a timeline that prosecutors say shows weeks of deception. The next public milestone is Etzel’s court proceedings as investigators continue sorting through whether anyone else helped conceal the crime.
Author note: Last updated April 22, 2026.