How murder investigation unfolded after child found in suitcase in Indiana
SELLERSBURG, Ind. (WISH) — Indiana State Police took over six months to determine and release the names of a 5-year-old boy and the suspects in his murder after he was found in a suitcase in southern Indiana.
Authorities said the boy was Cairo Ammar Jordan, and his mother, 37-year-old Dejuane Anderson of Atlanta, Georgia, is wanted for his murder.
Police in San Francisco took 40-year-old Dawn Coleman of Shreveport, Louisiana, into custody in connection with the case.
Investigators say their work was relatively quick for this type of case. “People need to remember it’s not like a ‘CSI’ TV show. Things don’t happen in an hour’s time,” said Sgt. Carey Huls, a spokesman for Indiana State Police.
Cairo’s body was discovered April 16, but police did not share his identity until Wednesday.
Huls said it took months to collect and process evidence to identify Cairo and the suspects. “It actually moved relatively quickly in many regards because, six months ago, we had nothing other than what we had in front of us: no witnesses, no family, no anything to say who this young child was.”
Police had to do DNA testing and run the fingerprints found on the trash bag in which the boy’s body was wrapped.
“Even things that nowadays are quite automated can still take a lot of time. Just because it’s not the antiquated days of fingerprints that used to be done on paper, but it can still take a lot of time for things like that to come back. Any process that involved testing, even though our labs are very high-tech and Indiana State Police has awesome lab personnel and our labs are high-tech, it still takes time for those processes to take place.”
Huls said investigators had to slowly build the case one piece of evidence at a time.
“We have to start with the physical evidence, so whatever you can get,” Huls said. “Physical evidence left behind at the scene can leave traces of whatever. Footprints are left behind. Tire prints are left behind at crime scenes.”
He said it is a long process to gather data from credit cards, social media and other sources; before they even get the information, they can spend weeks or months writing search warrants and waiting on companies to collate the data.
“You may have to comb through days, weeks, months of data to find that one item that you’re looking for and, in the case of this investigation, we had several detectives looking at a lot of pieces of data,” Huls said.
The sergeant said state police received numerous tips about Anderson’s whereabouts but noted it’s “highly unlikely” she is in those areas.
He reminds everyone: If you believe you have spotted her, first call your local authorities so they can respond immediately.