Background: Brighton Road home in Birmingham, Alabama where remains of Donald Cash, 52, were found in the backyard before police charged his son, Ledarius Cash, 30, with murder in Dec. 2023. (Google Maps screenshot) / Inset top left: Ledarius Cash booking photo (Birmingham Police Department) / Right: Donald Cash photo provided by Birmingham Police Department
Two months after Donald Cash’s family believed their father had “vanished from this earth,” police investigating his death in Alabama found themselves standing in his son’s backyard gazing upon Cash’s bones. This week, his son was charged with his murder.
Ledarius “Tre” Cash, 30, was arrested and charged with murdering his father by shooting him to death at some point this fall and likely around Sept. 26 when he was last seen, according to a statement from the Birmingham Police Department reviewed Friday by Law&Crime.
Friday’s arrest marks the third time Ledarius Cash has been arrested in connection to his father’s disappearance. Officers hauled him in this November after investigators executed a search warrant on his residence and made a grim discovery. Donald Cash’s skeletal remains were found covered by a “fresh pile of compost/topsoil” in an area “made to look like a garden” in the backyard of his son’s home, AL.com reported.
A cadaver dog sniffed out the bones and a coroner and medical examiner confirmed the remains were human. At the time, Birmingham Police had not yet identified the remains as Cash’s but arrested Ledarius Cash on a charge of abuse of a corpse, police records show. His bond was set at $250,000 and he was bailed out in a matter of days.
Notably, before the abuse of corpse arrest, police had arrested Cash on Sept. 29, three days after his dad was reported missing. He was charged with receiving stolen property involving two handguns and was released on bond the same day.
But this week, the Jefferson County Coroner in Alabama notified police that the remains investigators found months ago did belong to Donald Cash just as detectives had suspected.
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Ledarius Cash was booked by police on Wednesday and held in the Jefferson County Jail without bond. It is unclear if he has retained an attorney.
Donald Cash was the proprietor of a family-owned freight hauling company, Cash and Sons Transport, according to business records reviewed Friday by Law&Crime. He shared the business with his partner of nearly 30 years, Antonietta Johnson. When his family was interviewed by AL.com in November, little was said about Ledarius Cash, but Donald Cash’s partner and daughter heaped praise on him as a “family man” who “looked out for everybody” and was “always smiling.”
Tatum Cash, sister to Ledarius Cash, told the outlet after her brother was first charged with abuse of a corpse, that when their father had first gone missing, it was out of character and alarming.
It seemed like he had “vanished from this earth,” she said.
The last time he was seen alive, he was at his home in Wylam, Alabama, working on one of his trucks, a longtime favorite hobby.
The truck was located a week later less than 10 miles from his house.
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