The grandmother of Semaj Crosby, the 17-month-old girl found dead under a couch in Joliet Township earlier this year, insists that “Someone knows what happened” to the toddler, according to published reports.
“You don’t expect for a child to be with the mother and ‘poof’ the baby is gone,” Darlene Crosby, Semaj’s grandmother, said told reporters at a South Side church Tuesday. “You don’t expect that.”
Police have said Crosby, Semaj’s mother and Semaj’s aunt are among “persons of interest” in the case.
In September, the Will County coroner’s office ruled Semaj’s death a homicide. Her cause of death was determined to be asphyxia.
Crosby added that after the child was reported missing, “everybody took flight” to search for Semaj, though she didn’t look inside the 864-square-foot home.
Neil Patel, the attorney representing Semaj’s mother, Sheri Gordon, previously told the Chicago Sun-Times that she was cooperating with the investigation.
“We are doing everything we can to cooperate with the sheriff’s investigation to the best of our abilities,” Patel said. “Our concern right now is bringing to justice the people that did this horrible thing.”
Asked to identify who those people might be, Patel declined to elaborate.
Semaj lived in the 300 block of Louis Road in Joliet Township with her mother, three siblings, grandmother, aunt, her aunt’s two young children and her aunt’s parolee boyfriend. Gordon’s Section 8 housing voucher was allotted for only her and her children, Joliet housing officials previously have said.
The sheriff’s office said the home was in “very deplorable” condition when the child was found dead under a couch shortly before midnight on April 26.
The day before, DCFS had been at the home investigating a child-neglect allegation but saw “no obvious hazards or safety concerns” for Semaj or her siblings, state officials said. Semaj, her three siblings and mother all slept in the same bedroom.
About two-and-a-half hours after the visit from DCFS, the toddler was reported missing, prompting a massive search of her subdivision near Joliet. Eventually, police sought to search the home, but police said a lawyer for Gordon wouldn’t let them do so until they obtained a search warrant, which they did.
Less than two weeks after Semaj was found dead, the house burned to the ground. Authorities said arson was “most likely” the cause.
