Mother of dead Belleville girl agrees to extradition; father may face more charges

A married couple facing charges in connection to their 6-year-old daughter’s death in Belleville appeared in Las Vegas court Monday morning.

Elizabath Quate, 35, appeared on an unrelated fugitive warrant from a previous retail theft case in St. Clair County. The Associated Press reported she told a judge Monday she will not fight her extradition to Belleville to face felony charges in her daughter’s death.

Jason Quate’s arraignment for child abuse charges was postponed until Friday in a different court room Monday, the AP reported. A prosecutor said there may be more charges filed against the former Belleville resident by then.

The child abuse charges are in connection to his alleged treatment of his two surviving daughters in Nevada.

The two were also charged Friday in St. Clair County with concealing a homicidal death of their 6-year-old daughter, whose decomposed body was found in a Centreville garage.

Police say Alysha Quate died in a home on Lebanon Avenue in Belleville before her body was hidden in Centreville.

Their bonds for those charges were set at $750,000. However, Jason Quate, 34, was already being held without bond on charges of sex trafficking of an adult and accepting or receiving earnings of a prostitute.

Jason Quate is also scheduled to appear Tuesday on a charge of possessing child pornography, the AP reports.

St. Clair County State’s Attorney Brendan Kelly said the forensic analysis to determine the cause of Alysha’s death would take some time.

The case began when Elizabeth Quate went to a Las Vegas women’s shelter June 5 and told authorities her husband had been prostituting her. She told Las Vegas police they could find the body of her 6-year-old daughter in a detached garage in Centreville. Police found the girl’s body in the garage Tuesday morning, June 6.

Since then, police in Illinois and Nevada have been working to piece together what happened.

Alysha’s autopsy was Friday morning in St. Louis, but the results were inconclusive. St. Clair County Coroner Calvin Dye Sr. said further tests need to be done because the child’s body was so badly decomposed.

Concealment of a homicidal death is a class 3 felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

This story was originally published June 12, 2017 at 10:32 AM with the headline "Mother of dead Belleville girl agrees to extradition; father may face more charges."