The local medical examiner’s office confirmed Wednesday that the two Black girls found stuffed inside suitcases and buried in shallow graves on Cleveland’s east side were related.
A preliminary DNA analysis found that the girls, believed to be between 8 and 14 years old, were half-siblings.
“At this time, neither decedent has been positively identified,” Christopher Harris, a spokesperson for the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s Office, said in a statement.
The ME’s office has not released the cause of death. Cleveland Police Chief Dorothy Todd said Tuesday that neither body appeared to have been dismembered.
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A dog walker discovered the girls Monday evening after coming across the first body near East 162nd Street and Midland Avenue, close to an all-boys public school called the Ginn Academy School, and contacted police.
While searching the area, Cleveland homicide detectives later uncovered a second shallow grave containing a suitcase with another body inside.
Police have not determined how long the girls had been buried at the location. However, the man whose dog discovered them told WEWS-TV that the mound of dirt covering one of the bodies had been there for at least a week.
“It was like a pile of dirt, and she stopped to sniff … and she was taking too long,” Phillip Donaldson told the station. “So I went back and looked, and it was a suitcase that was half-buried, and I pulled it up and looked in it, and it was a head. Somebody’s head in it.”
Todd said the girls were discovered in an area with very little foot traffic. She added that investigators have not connected the case to any active missing persons reports in the area.
Police said they currently have no leads or suspects and urged anyone with information to contact the Cleveland Police Department’s homicide unit at 216-623-5464 or Crime Stoppers at 216-252-7463.
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