Nearly 35 years after authorities found the body of a 5-year-old girl at an illegal dump site in Georgia, investigators identified the child and arrested two people accused of murdering her.
The girl, long known only as “Baby Jane Doe,” was identified Monday as Kenyatta “KeKe” Odom, according to WJAX-TV and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
Authorities have arrested her mother, 56-year-old Evelyn Odom — also known as Zmecca Luciana — and her mother’s then-live-in-boyfriend, 61-year-old Ulyster Sanders, on charges including murder and first-degree cruelty to children in connection with KeKe’s death.
Officials found the girl’s body in Millwood on Dec. 21, 1988. She had been wrapped in a baby blanket and put into a gym bag that went inside a suitcase, which was then encased in concrete and hidden inside a TV cabinet, WSB-TV reported.
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Ware County Sheriff Carl James, who responded to the initial call reporting the discovery of the body in 1988, said the child was found in a wooded area a short distance from a roadway.
“I was really not prepared for what we were about to find — that is the body of a little girl, who we now know is Kenyatta Odom,” he said.
Authorities spent years trying to identify Baby Jane Doe, making pleas to the public, checking her description against those of other missing children and using law enforcement message boards to spread the word. Jason Seacrist, special agent in charge of the GBI’s Region 4 office, said a newspaper found near her body pointed to a possible connection to Albany, though authorities cast a wide net while working to identify her.
It wasn’t until 2019 that a GBI agent started looking into using DNA genome sequencing in the case. In 2022, investigators confirmed that Baby Jane Doe had family in Albany. That year, officials put out a news release about the case in hopes of drumming up more leads.
A tipster called police shortly after that, Seacrist said.
“She knew that there had been a child that had gone missing and that her mother said that the child had gone to live with her father,” he said. “This person never really believed that story.”
In June, authorities confirmed that Baby Jane Doe was KeKe. Weeks later, on Nov. 1, a grand jury returned an indictment for Evelyn Odom and Sanders. Both suspects were arrested without incident on Nov. 9, Seacrist said.
The exact cause of KeKe’s death remained unclear on Monday, although her manner of death was previously found to be homicide. In an indictment, authorities said Evelyn Odom and Sanders put KeKe into hot water “seriously disfiguring her legs and feet, which ultimately caused her death,” WSB reported.
Seacrist said Monday that a medical examiner is reviewing records from the case in light of newly uncovered information.
James said the case showed the work that authorities put into solving long-running investigations.
“Where unsolved cold cases are concerned, investigators are always working on these cases,” James said Monday. “Even though the public might not see any progress for months, or even years, they’re still being investigated and worked on.”