WARE COUNTY, Ga. – The mother of a little girl known for decades as “Baby Jane Doe,” is on trial for the murder of her daughter Kenyatta “Keke” Odom, nearly 37 years ago.
Investigators said Kenyatta Odom died sometime in 1988. Road workers discovered her remains in December of that year — inside a container in an old television cabinet. Her body was wrapped up in a blanket, inside of a duffel bag encased in concrete just off Duncan Bridge Road in Millwood, which is north of Waycross.
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For years, she had been known as “Baby Jane Doe.”
It wasn’t until 2023, nearly 35 years later, that investigators finally identified the little girl through DNA testing.
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The child’s mother, Evelyn Odom, and her boyfriend, Ulyster Sanders, were arrested and accused of killing Kenyatta and then dumping her body in rural Georgia.
Sanders pleaded guilty on one count of concealing the death of another and one count of concealing material facts related to Kenyatta’s death. He is expected to testify against Odom during the trial.
During opening statements on Thursday, prosecutors said Kenyatta was born with physical and mental disabilities, which they say contributed to Odom’s behavior toward her. The state said Kenyatta was severely injured after Odom placed her in scalding hot water as punishment for soiling herself.
Prosecutors say Sanders wanted to call emergency medical services for the child, but Odom did not want him to. The state says Kenyatta was placed on a bed, and died four to five days later. That’s when the state said the couple decided they needed to get rid of the body, which prosecutors say they did together.
Prosecutors said Odom had family in Ware County and was familiar with the area, and that’s why the child’s body was dumped in Waycross.
The defense elected to reserve their opening statements.
The first witness called by the state was a man named Joseph Carter. He was working for Pierce Timber Company in December of 1988 when a co-worker came to him saying he believed he found a body. That’s when the Ware County Sheriff’s Office was called.
The next witness to take the stand was Ware County Sheriff Carl James, who has worked for the Ware County Sheriff’s Office for 43 years.
He described the area where the body was found as a “trash dump”.
“There was a suitcase that had been contained in a wooden box, concrete, plastic. There was a what I would call a gym bag, a zippered gym bag that the body was actually contained in. But when I arrived, the body was contained in a suitcase but the suitcase had been broken open. And even though concrete had been poured into this suitcase, it wasn’t completely encasing the body or that gym bag,” the Sheriff said.
The sheriff said he could see the arm of an infant that wasn’t covered by the concrete.
According to court records, Kenyatta lived in a home with Odom and Sanders in Albany. That’s where investigators say the five-year-old little girl died after the couple submerged her body in hot water — disfiguring her legs and feet.
Investigators also say the couple tried to cover up her death by encasing her body in concrete and putting her in the large television console that was dumped in the woods.