Police identify 5-year-old boy found dead inside suitcase in Indiana, name two suspects
After a six-month investigation covering multiple states, police have confirmed the identity of a 5-year-old boy who was found dead inside a suitcase in southern Indiana last April. The child was identified as Cairo Ammar Jordan, of Atlanta, Georgia, during a news conference held by Indiana State Police on Wednesday.
"It's a bittersweet day," said Sgt. Carey Huls, the public information officer for the Sellersberg branch of the Indiana State Police, at the conference.
"Bitter, because no matter what progress is made and what happens in a case, we're still dealing with the tragic death of a precious young child. And unfortunately, we can't change that," he continued. "But the wheels of justice do turn, and we do make progress and so we have information today regarding the case."
Indiana State Police coordinated with law enforcement agencies in California and Georgia as they pursued an investigation into the child's mysterious death this year.
In addition to identifying the child's, police revealed the names of two suspects now involved in the case. On Oct. 14, the Washington County Circuit Court issued two felony arrest warrants — on charges of neglecting a dependent and obstruction of justice — for Dawn Elaine Coleman, 40, of Shreveport, Louisiana, and another for the deceased child's mother, Dejuane Ludie Anderson, Huls said. Anderson, 37, is from Atlanta.
While Coleman was recently arrested in San Francisco and will be extradited to Indiana within the next 30 days. Anderson remained at large as of Wednesday morning and her present location is unknown, Huls said.
Police have traced Anderson's previous whereabouts over the last six months to Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco, with her last known location being in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. A second arrest warrant, on murder charges, was issued for Anderson on Tuesday, according to Huls. Indiana State Police are asking the public for help as they continue to search for her.
The child's body was discovered by a mushroom hunter in an isolated, wooded area near a roadway in Indiana's Washington County, according to state police. The boy was found inside a "distinctive" hardshell suitcase, as Huls described it at Wednesday's conference, which had a colorful "Las Vegas" logo printed across the front.
A subsequent autopsy revealed that the child had not suffered significant traumatic injuries and determined that an electrolyte imbalance caused his death, the ISP announced in May, noting at the time that authorities still did not know where he died. The child's death from an electrolyte imbalance was probably directly caused by viral gastroenteritis, or stomach flu, state police said.
Despite the progress made, Huls said Wednesday that the information uncovered so far is "still just the tip of the iceberg" in a complicated investigation that "has a lot of twists and turns" and "a lot of information."