AUSTINTOWN — Laronda A. Mitchell, 38, of South Raccoon Road, was booked into the Mahoning County jail Tuesday after being charged Monday in Austintown Area Court with involuntary manslaughter, abuse of a corpse, three counts of child endangering and other charges in the death of her 17-year-old daughter.

Austintown police confirmed Tuesday that the charges are connected to the discovery of the girl’s body at Mitchell’s home at 1155 S. Raccoon Road on April 26 when officers went there to conduct a welfare check and later discovered the body in a “sealed” bedroom.

The room was sealed, Mitchell told police that day, because her daughter had been deceased for at least a month.

Mitchell was not in the Mahoning County jail Monday after the charges were filed. But a Tuesday Austintown Police Department news release states Mitchell was “arrested and incarcerated on the … charges” Tuesday. It is not known when Mitchell will be arraigned.

In addition to involuntary manslaughter, a first-degree felony, one felony count of child endangering and one felony count of abuse of a corpse, Mitchell is charged in Austintown Area Court with third-degree felony abduction, third-degree felony tampering with evidence and low-level misdemeanor failure to report a crime or knowledge of a death.

If convicted of involuntary manslaughter, Mitchell could get more than 11 years in prison. The felony child endangering and tampering with evidence charges each carries a possible penalty of several years in prison if convicted.

“This arrest is associated with the suspicious death investigation, and the charges were recommended by the Mahoning County prosecutors who are assisting in this case,” the news release states. “The investigation is ongoing.”

The Austintown police report on the finding of the body states Officer Chad Phillips spoke with Mitchell on April 26. Mitchell, who was not named in the police report but was described as the girl’s mother, was described as “standoffish” and “barely cracked the door to speak to him,” the report states.

Phillips said he asked the woman if children were inside the house, and she said she had two young children, according to the police report. Her 12-year-old son was called to the door to speak to Phillips, who described the boy as “normal.” The boy told the officer “everything was fine at the residence,” according to the report.

When Phillips asked about the woman’s 17-year-old daughter, Mitchell told the officer that the teen “ran away to be with her father in Cleveland,” the report states. She said the girl left about a month ago, and she had no contact information for her and would not provide Phillips with any further information.

As Phillips was leaving, Austintown dispatchers told him the 911 caller who requested the welfare check wanted to speak with him at Austintown Middle School, which is across the street from the home.

Three people met with Phillips. One of them said he had spoken with the mother via cellphone before calling the police. The caller said the mother began saying that her “son is God” and her daughter was sick and needed to be healed by God and that she “is gone.”

Phillips reported that the caller asked the mother to clarify what she said, and Mitchell told the caller that “God sucked the soul” from her and began talking about how people “are marked as demons” and God told her she needs to “take them out.”

The caller told Phillips the mother implied several times that someone had killed her daughter “to heal her,” the report states. All three complainants told Phillips the mother is “crazy” and all of them believed she “could and would” hurt the girl. Phillips told them he had spoken with the woman’s son, and he appeared to be a normal child.

However, the complainants said the boy now believes he is God and speaks strangely, according to the report. Police were able to reach the girl’s father, who told police he had not seen his daughter since April 2025 because he was in prison. He told officers he believed his daughter may have been harmed and said her mother “is capable of hurting her own child,” the report states.

Phillips requested backup from all available units, and they went back to speak to Mitchell. Officers said Mitchell was hesitant to answer them and kept looking to her son to answer, the report states. The boy told officers he was God and that the incident “had to happen.”

Mitchell and her son finally told officers that the girl was in a bedroom, but the door was taped shut so they could not get inside. When officers asked the mother why the door was taped, she told them it was because the daughter “started to smell.”

After being read her rights and placed in handcuffs, Mitchell told officers her daughter had been deceased inside the bedroom for at least a month. She said she sealed the door and windows to “prevent the smell from escaping,” the report states.

Mitchell said she knew her daughter was dead but never called anyone to report it. She also said God, which is how she referred to her son, had to do something to the girl, but she did not know what because she continually told officers she “was not in the room when it happened,” the report states.

Officers went into the bedroom and found the victim lying in bed covered with a sheet. Mitchell and “the children” were taken to the Austintown Police Department, but it is unclear who the children are because only the 12-year-old boy and the victim were mentioned earlier in the report.

Laronda A. Mitchell has few previous criminal charges in Mahoning County, with just a seat belt offense in 2014 when she lived on Youngstown’s East Side.

In December 2024, while she was living at the South Raccoon Road residence, she was convicted in Austintown Area Court of misdemeanor theft and was ordered to continue her counseling at Valley Counseling Service.

She also had two similar misdemeanor thefts earlier that fall in Boardman and also had one more traffic offense in 2024 and another one in 2025, according to court records.