Woman sentenced to 25 years after pleading guilty in case of boy found dead in suitcase in Indiana
SALEM, Ind. — A Louisiana woman was sentenced Tuesday to 25 years in prison for her involvement in the death of a 5-year-old Atlanta boy whose body was found in a suitcase in rural southern Indiana last year.
A Washington County judge sentenced Dawn Elaine Coleman, 41, of Shreveport, Louisiana, to 30 years, suspended for five years. She had pleaded guilty to a Level 1 felony charge of conspiracy to commit murder in connection with the death of Cairo Ammar Jordan.
Coleman must serve more than 18 years under the Indiana code, which requires those convicted of Level 1 crimes to serve 75% of their sentence, according to the Washington County Prosecutor’s Office.
Cairo’s body was found in April 2022 in a suitcase in a wooded area about 35 miles northwest of Louisville, Kentucky. An autopsy showed he died of vomiting and diarrhea that led to dehydration, Indiana State Police said.
Investigators said Cairo had been dead for about a week or less before a mushroom hunter discovered his body in a hard-shell suitcase decorated with a distinctive Las Vegas design.
He was buried last June in a cemetery in Salem, Indiana, after a memorial service at which a police chaplain called the then-unknown child an “unknown angel.”
Authorities released Cairo’s name last year after announcing that he had been identified and that Coleman and the boy’s mother, Dejuane Ludie Anderson, were suspects in his death.
A murder arrest warrant was issued for Anderson in November 2022, but the Atlanta woman remains at large, the prosecutor’s office said Tuesday.
Investigators determined that Coleman knew Anderson and that the two women had stayed together in Cairo at a home in Louisville. Authorities alleged that Coleman helped Anderson dispose of Cairo’s body in April 2022.
“This crime not only impacted Washington County, but became a national story,” Attorney General Tara Hunt said in a news release. “The victim in this case was an innocent child of just five years old. It is always tragic when a child’s life is taken. It is incomprehensible if those who are supposed to care for the child are responsible.”