A month after his discovery, the deceased body of a boy discovered in a wooded area in a remote part of southern Indiana has yet to be identified. The child is described as black, approximately five years old and about four feet tall with a slight build and short hair. He was discovered inside a suitcase discarded about 80 feet off the roadway in the 7000 block of East Holder Road in New Pekin, Indiana. A man out hunting mushrooms on Saturday, April 16 came across the suitcase around 7:30 p.m. The suitcase bears a graphic that reads “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas Nevada.” Autopsy results could not determine the cause of death, but police believe the boy had been deceased less than a week.
Despite widespread media attention in the days following the discovery, no one able to identify the child has come forward.
“For some reason, nobody’s noticing that he’s missing. It could be someone not from this country. Very possible. We’re not precluding anything like that in the investigation,” Indiana State Police Sgt. Carey Huls told WAVE. “We have to ask ourselves, how can a young boy go missing and nobody know that he’s missing? It’s very troubling and something our detectives are working around the clock to find answers for.”
As time goes on and no one comes forward, it seems increasingly likely that the person responsible for caring for the child could also bear some responsibility for his death.
“He was in someone’s custody and care for his daily needs….Somebody was taking care of this little boy.” Huls stated at a press conference in April. “Someone somewhere knows something.”
Whoever was responsible for caring for this child, it appears they have yet to report him missing to any law enforcement agency nationwide.
“If it’s a child on a missing children’s list anywhere in America, that’s already been looked into,” Huls stated in a recent case update. “They’re not finding any matches there.”
Jeff Meredith, the mushroom hunter who discovered the body, took WHAS to the spot where he made the discovery. “I decided to cross over (the road) and mushroom hunt on this side here.” It was then that he spotted the brightly colored suitcase about 80 feet off the road.
According to WHAS, Meredith “immediately thought to call the police. But, he hesitated. He thought if they came all the way out there and it turned out to just be a suitcase he’d feel like a fool.”
So he opened the suitcase and discovered the lifeless body of the boy inside. “When I first saw that little feller, immediately, I felt that he was telling me ‘Help me, I need help.”
Whoever is responsible for placing the boy’s body in those woods, it seems strange they would drive out to this remote area near the dead end of a country road, walk a short distance into the woods and leave the brightly colored case where it is fairly easy to spot. They could have buried it or covered it with brush. They could have thrown it in a ravine somewhere or a body of water. Why go to the trouble of driving out to the middle of nowhere and then leave the body where it could be easily discovered? People live on that road. Most likely, the case containing the body was out there only a few days before discovery.
Investigators are frustrated that all of the 500 calls into their national tip line have resulted in dead ends. Most of the calls alert the ISP to missing children they’re already aware of, or offer recommendations on how to investigate. As Huls told WAVE, “We don’t want those tips about, ‘Have you thought about using this or trying this? We want firsthand knowledge. Somebody knows this young man, somebody has knowledge (if) he’s not home, he’s not where he’s supposed to be, he’s not in school, and that’s the information we’re really looking for.”
“Time is something we don’t want to fight too long with obviously,” Huls recently told WLKY. “We would’ve liked to, and thought we would, have more answers.”
“Somebody out there has first-hand knowledge,” Huls said. “Not something they have looked up on the internet. We mean first-hand knowledge. Everyone wants answers. Everyone wants to bring justice and a voice to this little guy.”
The Indiana State Police have set up a national tip line to help identify the boy. The number people can call is 1-888-437-6432.
If there is something 