The Indiana State Police (ISP) continue their efforts to identify a deceased five-year-old boy who was found stuffed in a suitcase in Washington County nearly a month ago.
A resident hunting for mushrooms on the evening of April 16 discovered a hardshell suitcase in a wooded area in the 7000 block of East Holder Road in the southern Indiana county, the ISP reported in a pair of press releases. Inside the suitcase, the mushroom hunter found the small boy’s body and immediately called 911.
“He is described as a black male, approximately four feet tall, with a slender build and short haircut,” the ISP said. Autopsy results indicated the child was about five years old.
According to an image released by the agency, a graphic on the suitcase reads: “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas Nevada.”
On Thursday, WAVE reported that toxicology results are still pending. Authorities believe toxicology “information will shed more light on the cause of death,” the ISP said.
In its initial release, the agency stated that investigators believe the child’s death took place during the week leading up to the discovery of the body.
On April 18, the ISP established a toll-free tip line that had received 200 tips by the following day, none of which “led to the identification of the deceased child,” the agency said. Nearly a month and 500 to 1000 tips later, officials are still working to identify the child, ISP Sgt. Carey Huls recently told CNN.
“We are getting a lot of people on the internet searching for missing children, which is not what we need right now,” he said. “We have contact with all of those agencies and we are always checking that. We don’t have a match there.”
We really want to know who he is. Because somebody had to take care of him, and somebody’s not talking. Whoever was responsible for this young man — for his care, for his well-being — nobody’s stepped forward. Now, there’s lots of different answers that could answer why that is, but right now, we need to know who that person or people were that were responsible for him so we can find out exactly what happened. And that will ultimately change the direction of this investigation.
“We’re also still waiting for that call that we, we’ve never got from somebody who knows this boy and says, you know, ‘This is what’s happened,’ or knows that they know this child and they haven’t seen them,” he recently told the outlet.
Anyone with information regarding the case is urged to contact the toll-free tip line at 1-888-437-6432.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Do you think we’re headed towards recession?
LLOYD BLANKFEIN: We’re certainly heading — it’s a very, very high risk factor. There’s a path, a narrow path, but I think the Fed has very powerful tools. It’s hard to finely tune them and hard to see the effects of them quickly enough to alter it. But I think they are responding well. It’s definitely a risk. If I was running a big company I would be very prepared for it. If I was a consumer, I would prepared for it. But it’s not baked in the cake.
The White House claimed President Joe Biden’s administration made the baby formula shortage crisis a top priority as early as February, even though the president claimed ignorance of the problem on Thursday.
“This is something he is focusing on very acutely and again I said 24/7 we’ve been working on this since we have learned about this back in February,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during the daily briefing about Biden, calling the issue “one of the presidents top priorities.”
Biden bristled when asked by reporters on Friday if he could have acted sooner to fix the crisis.
“If we had been better mind readers, I guess we could’ve, but we moved as the problem became apparent to us,” Biden said.
The president did not even personally mention the crisis until Friday, despite weeks of reports highlighting the problem.
“I’ll answer the baby formula question because, all of a sudden, it’s on the front page of every newspaper,” Biden grumbled on Friday.
He announced the launch of a new government website to help parents locate baby formula in stores, but it was beset by extremely long hold times and unhelpful information.
Jean-Pierre alluded to a comment from Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Bacerra claiming the Biden administration had been working on the issue since February and even as early as last year in 2021.
CNN: “You are satisfied with the government’s response throughout [the baby formula shortage]?”
HHS Sec. Xavier Becerra: “FDA has kept me apprised of this from LAST YEAR. We have been moving as quickly as we can” pic.twitter.com/5WRZa5chYg
“You’ve heard us talk about this, you’ve heard colleagues talking about what we have done since February,” Jean-Pierre said. “We’ve been working on this 24/7.”
Jean-Pierre refused to offer a timeline for when supplies of baby formula would return to normal.
“What I can say is there are a lot of dates floating around out there,” she said.
President Joe Biden struggled Monday with the correct pronunciation of the name of Aaron Salter Jr., a heroic ex-cop and security guard who died Saturday confronting the Buffalo mass shooting suspect.
“We pay tribute to all law enforcement officers and their families who understand what it takes, what’s at risk, to save and protect all of us,” Biden said. “That includes paying tribute to the Buffalo police officer Aaron Salder — Slater, excuse me — who gave his life trying to save others.”
Biden spoke about Salter during a Public Safety Officer Medals of Valor ceremony at the White House for law enforcement and public safety officials.
Salter was a Buffalo police officer for 30 years before retiring in 2022 and taking a security job at the Tops Friendly Market where the shooting took place.
Salter hit the alleged shooter with at least one round from his pistol, but it was blocked by the alleged shooter’s bulletproof armor. Salter was later shot and killed during the attack.
“You’re the heart and soul and very spine of this country and communities,” Biden continued, praising the public safety officials in the room.
During the ceremony, Biden also botched the name of Rep. Adriano Espaillat, a Democrat congressman from New York.
“Excuse me. You can call me ‘Bidden,’” Biden joked, mispronouncing his own name. “We’ve known each other so long and I still stumbled. I apologize.”