Warning: Distressing content
A US mum has been charged with the murder of her two-year-old son, who was so badly injured only his liver and left leg were identifiable.
Julia Leanna Tomlin, from Virginia, US, reported her son Noah Tomlin missing in late June this year.
His body was found 10 days later, in an incinerator in a city landfill and steam plant.
Investigators had to resort to DNA analysis to be able to identify the boy.
His 34-year-old mother had been charged with three counts of felony child neglect and her other children had been sent to stay with relatives.
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This week, she was charged with murder, as well as with unlawfully disposing of a body.
Hampton Commonwealth Attorney Anton Bell this week released autopsy results and, according to local media, Noah Tomlin ultimately died of blunt force trauma to the head and fractures to his skull.
Bell said Noah also died of "battered child syndrome".
The body was so badly decomposed authorities had to call in an anthropologist to piece it back together.
"I've seen some very graphic things," Bell said.
"Nothing really kind of grabs you like seeing a child or toddler as a victim of a crime.
"These injuries were not only severe, but horrific, to say the very least."
Noah's injuries were found to be so severe they had actually stunted his growth.
He had jaw fractures, posterior rib fractures and hairline fractures in the tibia and radius.
"His abuse was of such a nature, literally his bones stopped growing," Bell said.
The mother had previously been charged with child neglect and served a five-month jail sentence and a year of probation in 2010, after pleading guilty to burning her daughter on a stove.
She will face court on Monday.
