Police: Mom of 5-Year-Old Boy Who Was Found Dead in Suitcase in Indiana Woods Arrested After 2 Years on the Run

The mother of a five-year-old boy — who was found dead in a suitcase in the Indiana woods — has finally been arrested after nearly two years on the run.

It was April 2022 when a mushroom hunter found little Cairo Ammar Jordan’s body stuffed in a suitcase in Washington County, WDRB reported. It took several months of investigation and asking the public for help for police to positively identify the child as Cairo.

An arrest warrant was filed for the boy’s mother, Dejaune Anderson of Georgia, but law enforcement officials were unable to locate her. Indiana State Police (ISP) believed she was somewhere in the western part of the United States, the local outlet stated.

Anderson’s friend, Dawn Coleman of Louisiana, was charged with conspiracy to commit murder in connection to Cairo’s death and sentenced to 25 years in prison in November 2023.

According to the prosecution, Coleman admitted to witnessing Anderson lying on top of the boy while he was face-down on a bed. 

Coleman told police that “it was already done” when she walked in on the disturbing scene in the bedroom of the home. She said she then helped Anderson place Cairo’s body into a trash bag and the suitcase before driving to the wooded area outside Pekin, Indiana.

An autopsy showed that the boy had died from “vomiting and diarrhea that led to dehydration,” according to WDRB.

The investigation also determined that he died approximately a week or less before the mushroom forager randomly discovered his body.

ISP announced Friday that they had finally caught Anderson after all this time:

On Thursday, March 14, 2024, U.S. Marshalls located and arrested Dejuane L. Anderson in Arcadia, California, a suburb of Los Angeles. Authorities arrested Anderson on a warrant out of Washington County, Indiana. The warrant, issued in October of 2022, listed the charges as Murder, Neglect of a Dependent Resulting in Death (Level 1 Felony), and Obstruction of Justice (Level 6 Felony).

ISP detectives said they received a tip from a “concerned citizen,” leading to the apprehension of Anderson while she was attempting to board a public transit train.

“Detectives from the Sellersburg post are currently enroute [sic] to California to continue the investigation,” ISP added.

“It’s a somber moment when you think back to the whole story, the whole case,” said Sgt. Carey Huls. “I was in that area, the crime scene, just last week so it just brings back a lot of memories.”

“This is something, I’m not a detective, I am not the one that’s putting in those hours after hours in the middle of the night sometimes at different locations but a lot of sweat, blood and tears going into an investigation like this,” he continued. “I’m just very happy for those men, the investigators and to have the break that we knew would come.”