CHICAGO (CBS) — The mother of a 5-year-old boy whose body was found in a suitcase two years ago was arrested in Los Angeles this week.
The body of Cairo Ammar Jordan was found on April 16, 2022, in Washington County, Indiana, near Louisville, Kentucky.
His mother, Dejaune Ludie Anderson, 38, of Atlanta, was arrested by the LAPD and was in custody in the Los Angeles Police Department Valley Jail in Van Nuys, California on Friday. Information about charges was not listed in jail records.
After Cairo’s death, an autopsy found that he died from an electrolyte imbalance most likely due to gastroenteritis, or vomiting and diarrhea that led to dehydration, according to Indiana State Police. Investigators said the boy had died within a week prior to his body’s discovery.
Police said Cairo had never been reported missing, slowing the investigation of the case, as he remained unidentified for months. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation helped Indiana authorities contact Cairo’s father after investigators confirmed the boy’s identity.
Another woman, Dawn Elaine Coleman of Shreveport, Louisiana has been sentenced to decades in prison in connection with Cairo’s death. Coleman was arrested in California in October 2022 after police identified Cairo and linked her to his death.
Police have said Coleman and Anderson had known each other for about a year, and had traveled extensively with her and Cairo, and the three had been staying together in a home in Louisville.
Investigators found both Coleman’s and Anderson’s fingerprints on black plastic bags the boy’s body had been placed inside within the suitcase.
Police said Coleman admitted to walking into a bedroom of the home they shared in Louisville, where she saw Anderson lying on top of Cairo, who was face down on the bed. Coleman told police “it was already done” when she walked in, and Anderson asked her to help put Cairo into a trash bag, and then into the suitcase.
They then took Cairo’s body to a wooded area in Washington County, outside of Pekin, where they dumped the suitcase.
On the evening of Saturday, April 16, 2022, a man was searching for mushrooms in the woods off Holder Road in southeast Washington County, Indiana – when he discovered the suitcase, Indiana State Police said in an affidavit. The suitcase had an image printed on it of the “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign that is considered to mark the south end of the Las Vegas Strip.
Indiana State Police
The mushroom hunter approached the suitcase and opened it – finding a pillow and a closed black trash bag inside, state police reported.
Inside the trash bag was the boy’s body, state police reported.
State police came to the scene, and the suitcase and its contents were taken to the Washington County, Indiana Coroner’s office. Fingerprints were obtained by an Indiana State Police forensic
