Klent Elwoods, on the left, and Lisa Jones, on the right, appear inset against the street on which they lived in the Chicago suburb of Forest Park, Ill. (Park Forest Police Department; Screengrab via WGN)
A 5-year-old Illinois girl died over the weekend in the Chicago metropolitan area and now her grandparents are in jail, police say.
“It is with heavy hearts that we share the death of Jada Moore,” a press release issued by the Park Forest Police Department says. “The men and women of the Park Forest Police Department wish to express their deepest sympathy to Jada’s family and friends and grieve the tragic loss of this child’s life.”
Late Friday night, just before 11:00 p.m., a 911 call was made to dispatchers serving the small village just south of Chicago – a planned community that’s been an explicit part of the Windy City’s suburbs since after World War II. Park Forest police and paramedics were asked to come to a house on Osage Street due to an “unresponsive” 5-year-old girl, the police department’s release says.
And, the allegations suggest at least one aspect of the criminal case was fairly open and shut.
Klent Elwoods, 62, is the girl’s grandfather – and the person who dialed 911 that night. Elwoods allegedly “admitted to abusing” his granddaughter on that same emergency phone call, police said.
Upon arrival, officers and paramedics “immediately performed CPR,” the PFPD said, and the child was rushed to nearby Franciscan Health Olympia Fields Hospital. Eventually, she was airlifted to Comer Children’s Hospital in Chicago. Moore, however, would succumb to her various injuries around 9:00 a.m. the next morning, police said.
Those injuries included “signs of recent physical abuse as well as older indicators,” according to the PFPD. The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office, on Sunday, determined her death was caused by multiple injuries inflicted during child abuse, according to the Chicago Tribune.
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Law&Crime reached out to the medical examiner’s office for additional details on this story but no response was immediately forthcoming.
Elwoods, meanwhile, was taken into custody along with his wife, police said. The girl’s grandfather and grandmother, Lisa Jones, 57, would both allegedly admit “to physically abusing Jada” during interviews with detectives, the PFPD said. On Saturday, the evidence against them was presented to the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office.
Elwoods and Jones currently stand accused of one count each of murder in the first degree for the death of their grandchild.
The duo were slated to appear in a Cook County courthouse on Monday for a bond hearing. Inquiries to the county clerk and state’s attorney as to the status of that hearing were not immediately returned.
Law enforcement has not said what type of abuse the young girl suffered.
Police did, however, tell Law&Crime that after the girl’s death and her grandparents’ arrest, the house where the abuse occurred was made empty.
“There was no one else living at the residence,” Park Forest Chief of Police Brian Rzyski said in an email. “The biological mother lives out of state and details related to family outside of the household where this crime took place is unknown.”
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