Mom told by police body found in burning RV wasn't her missing son; DNA later determined it was him

HILLCREST HEIGHTS, Md. - A Maryland mother said authorities told her a burned body found in an abandoned vehicle earlier this year was not her missing son. However, a DNA test has proved otherwise.

On Jan. 27, firefighters found the body inside a burning vehicle in a lot off of Southern Avenue across from United Medical Center at the Maryland-D.C. border.

At the time, McDermon thought it might be her missing son, but Prince George's County police told her they thought they knew who the victim was and it was not her son, Matthew.

McDermon said it took six more weeks of pressing authorities before she finally started getting answers from a police captain.

"Before we ended the phone call, I said I even inquired about a fire that I heard about on Jan. 27, and he said - I don't have exact words - but the gist was that a fire on the 27th, none of my detectives told me about this in the meetings that we had about Matthew, and I am going to call homicide and call you right back," McDermon recalled.

From there, she said things moved fast. On March 12, two detectives came to the house and took a DNA sample from her and her son, Ryan - about a month and a half after she said she was told by another detective that he believed the body in the burning RV had already been identified.

A week ago, detectives came to her house and confirmed the DNA taken from her a month before was a match to Matthew.

But the cause and manner of his death were still undetermined. McDermon said detectives told her it may have been an accident.

She is telling her story because she does not think police took her son's case seriously enough. She said she did not meet the lead detective until more than two weeks after filing a missing person report.

"It has always been my thought that they just weren't truthful with what they were actually doing to help find Matthew," McDermon said. "After all this time, they had Matthew since Jan. 27. They didn't do the basics of their search that they should have done."

Prince George's County police told FOX 5 that homicide investigators did think that this burned body was someone else until the DNA proved otherwise. They also said their missing person's detectives are committed in finding the missing and their homicide detectives are committed upon solving cases and finding killers.