ISP: Body of young boy found dead in Southern Indiana was inside suitcase

WASHINGTON COUNTY, Ind. (WAVE) - Indiana State Police said the body of a young boy who was found dead in the woods in eastern Washington County was found inside of a suitcase.

The new detail was confirmed by ISP Sgt. Carey Huls on Tuesday evening. A picture of the suitcase was released to the public in hopes new information comes forward.

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Huls said the suitcase with the boy’s body inside was found in New Pekin in the woods about 80 feet off of East Holder Road in the 7000 block.

Officials told WAVE News the boy’s autopsy was also completed on Tuesday afternoon. The body did not show any obvious cause of death, so Huls said investigators will now rely on toxicology reports to see if the child had drugs in his system when he died.

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The boy’s body was found Saturday night around 7:30 p.m. by a person who was mushroom hunting in the area, according to investigators.

Huls said the child is described as a Black boy around 5-years-old, about 4 feet tall with short hair and a slim build.

“This obviously could be a national thing,” Huls said on Monday. “It could be a child from any location. We’re not going to preclude anybody, and we’re going to look at any information that comes in that could answer the question of the identity of this child.”

Police said they requested the assistance of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s forensics services team in the case and are leaving no stone unturned in finding the child’s caregivers.

ISP created a tip line specifically for any information in relation to the death investigation: (888) 437-6432.

So far, more than 200 calls have been received from the public but none have led to the identification of the child, according to Huls.

WAVE News spoke with a family who lives right where the body was found. They didn’t want to be identified, but they did have a message.

“We don’t know, it may have hit our county, but what other counties has this happened to and they have not found them,” they said. “We don’t know. And that’s what makes it so hard, somebody knows something. I’d like to know a name. I don’t know why that means so much to me, everyone has a name.”

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