The body of an 18-month old toddler was found in a landfill yesterday in Dallas, Texas.
Named Cedric Jackson, the child was put to bed by his maternal aunt on Tuesday night in her apartment and was nowhere to be found the subsequent morning, triggering a kidnapping investigation from the local Dallas police department that mobilized most of the city’s police force.
The unfortunate discovery was made merely a day after an amber or child abduction emergency, alert was imposed on the entire state of some 28 million inhabitants as authorities failed to discover any concrete traces of Jackson’s whereabouts.
Jackson’s step-grandfather became the first suspect in the case, though it quickly became apparent by Wednesday that he had nothing to do with abduction, given his lack of physical proximity at the time.
Instead, Dallas police zeroed in upon 27-year-old Sedrick Johnson, the boyfriend of Jackson’s aunt who had been babysitting him at the time of the incident.
Johnson, as means of punishment for ‘making a mess’, wrapped the toddler’s body in a floor blanket on multiple occasions, though Tuesday’s instance proved fatal. Johnson then pulled Jackson’s cadaver from the blanket sometime after midnight, made failed attempts to resuscitate him with CPR for more than 30 minutes, and proceeded to throw his body into a large dumpster somewhere in the city’s northeastern district.
Johnson is currently in custody based on a serious bodily injury accusation, though more charges are sure enough to follow soon, including voluntary manslaughter. He’s unlikely to receive bail, given that the amount for the same has been set at a steep $503,000.
The Dallas Police authorities discovered the body at around 11 AM on Thursday, whereupon he was immediately declared deceased by the coroner’s department.
Jackson’s mother, Dishundra Thomas, is yet to make a public statement.