SPRING, Texas – Two families are now battling over the body of the boy who was killed by his girlfriend's father.
The boy's adoptive mother, Zakia McCormick, of Spring, said the boy's birth mother took the boy's body.
Investigators said Johran McCormick was shot and killed when a man discovered the boy in his 16-year-old daughter's bedroom.
Detectives said the daughter initially told her father she didn't know the boy. Investigators said after McCormick's death the girl admitted she knew him and invited him over to her house.
Zakia McCormick said she shipped Johran McCormick's body to New Orleans, where she planned to bury him, but his birth mother, Stacy LeBlanc, said she arranged for her own funeral home to pick up the body when it arrived in New Orleans.
LeBlanc said she did it because she is still legally Johran McCormick's mother.
"I never ever gave her any rights to my baby. She disregarded all my rights as the parent," said LeBlanc. "She excluded me out of everything. She hid him and everything else, and guess what, I knew her day of reckoning was going to come."
Zakia McCormick went to New Orleans to try to get the body back. Activist Quanell X is helping her with the fight.
"We called some lawyers in Louisiana -- in New Orleans who are going to attempt to help file an injunction," said Quanell X.
Quanell X wonders if LeBlanc now wants to claim the body because she wants to get money from any civil lawsuit involving Johran McCormick's death. LeBlanc denied that she is motivated by money.
KPRC legal analyst Brian Wice said the law on the custody issue is clear.
"If the biological mom never had her parental rights terminated, then she is the one that ultimately calls the shots," said Wice. "If the adoptive mom can come forward with a court order making her the parent, then it's a totally different situation."
Zakia McCormick and LeBlanc do not agree on much, but they both said they want to see the girl who invited Johran McCormick over to her house held responsible in some way for his death.