Ware County's Baby Jane Doe from 1988 is finally identified. GBI arrests 2 in her death

Authorities have made an arrest in one of Georgia's oldest unsolved murders, that of a 5-year-old girl found encased in concrete and dumped in woods in Southeast Georgia's Ware County in 1988.



On Nov. 13, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation identified the girl as Kenyatta Odom and her killers as her mother, Evelyn Odom, and stepfather, Ulyster Sanders, all from Albany.

GBI special agent Jason Seacrist said DNA led to them to Albany but the technology only got them so far.

"It was a tipster that finally came forward that provides us the final break that we needed," Seacrist said. "So sometimes it's just a matter of the information. It's not magic to work an investigation."



Odom and Sanders were arrested last week and charged with multiple felony counts, including murder.



The Georgia Bureau of Investigation's statement about the investigation said agents began looking into genome sequencing to identify the child in 2019.



A tip from the public helped move the case forward.

"With the help of the Ware County Sheriff’s Office, the GBI Crime Lab, as well as private labs, genealogy services were able to determine a certain family tree from the Albany area was likely related to the child," the bureau said in a statement. "However, it wasn’t until police received a tip from a member of the public following a news story that aired on the anniversary of the child’s death in 2022 that agents got the break they needed. Based on that tip, it was determined in early 2023 that the child was Kenyatta and that she died in Albany in 1988. The agents continued to investigate and determined that Ulyster was Evelyn’s live-in boyfriend at the time of Kenyatta’s death."