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Cleveland playground now a place of mourning for two girls found in suitcases
It’s called Saranac Playground, and when the weather is nice it becomes a magnet for the children who live on the east side of Cleveland.
But in recent days, this small patch of green has been visited by a stream of mourners seeking to pay their respects to two little girls who were found there stuffed inside suitcases and buried in shallow graves.
In the days since the bodies of 8-year-old Mila Chatman and her half-sibling, 10-year-old Amor Wilson, were found on Monday, a shrine of stuffed animals and flowers has grown.
So has the mystery surrounding their deaths.
Their mother, 28-year-old Aliyah Henderson, has been charged with two counts of aggravated murder.
During her first court appearance on Friday in Cleveland Municipal Court, she was not asked about the tragedy that has landed her in handcuffs, shocked her hometown and drawn national attention.
Municipal Court Judge Jeffrey Johnson set Henderson’s bond at $2 million, citing “the nature of the allegations” and his concern for public safety.
Dressed in a blue sweatshirt and surrounded by court officers, Henderson remained impassive.
“Thank you” were the only words she uttered during the brief hearing, in response to the judge wishing her good luck.
Earlier, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Kristine Travaglini revealed at the hearing that the bodies of the little girls were “badly decomposed.”
So far, the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s Office has not said how and when the little girls died, but did confirm that a DNA investigation showed they were related as half-siblings.
Cleveland Police Chief Dorothy Todd said neither child had been dismembered.
Henderson, who lives near Saranac Playground, had another child living at her home when police took her into custody on Wednesday, Todd said earlier this week.
The Department of Children and Family Services has taken custody of the child, who appears to be in good health, Todd said. But she did not provide any other information about the child.
A man who had been walking his dog reported the grim discovery on Monday at the playground, which is located near an all-boys public school called the Ginn Academy.
Responding to the 911 call, Cleveland homicide detectives confirmed the man’s dog had located the body of a young girl, and they quickly found a second shallow grave with a suitcase that contained another body.
“It was like a pile of dirt, and she stopped to sniff … and she was taking too long,” Phillip Donaldson told WEWS-TV. “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.”
Donaldson said that pile of dirt had been there for at least a week.
On Thursday, Deshaun Chatman, who said he was the father of Mila Chatman, visited the spot where the girl had been buried. He told local reporters that he had not had any contact with his daughter for several years. He said Henderson kept “ducking” him and that he’d been in touch with DCFS numerous times about getting custody of Mila.
“I just feel useless,” Chatman said. “I couldn’t save my daughter.”
Asked about Deshaun Chatman’s assertion that he had been trying get custody of his daughter, Cuyahoga County spokesperson Jennifer Ciaccia in a statement called the girls’ deaths “a tragedy for their families and our entire community” and declined to disclose any further information, citing an active criminal investigation and confidentiality obligations under Ohio law.
NBC News has reached out to Henderson’s mother for comment.
Back in 2019, Henderson and her daughters were mentioned in a Cleveland Plain Dealer article about a local hospital’s program to help struggling families.
It featured a photo of a smiling Henderson holding then 3-year-old Amor on her lap and Henderson’s mother holding Mila, who was almost 2 at the time.
“I could really use the help,” Henderson said in the story.
Rep. Julia Letlow won the Republican primary runoff for Senate in Louisiana, NBC News projects, defeating state Treasurer John Fleming in another victory for President Donald Trump’s slate of preferred candidates.
Trump endorsed Letlow early in the race, which went to a runoff after none of the GOP candidates won a majority of the initial primary vote on May 16. Trump waded into the state in an effort to oust GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy, who voted to convict Trump on impeachment charges following the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
See live runoff results here
Letlow was the top vote-getter in the first-round primary, winning 45%, followed by Fleming at 28%. Cassidy won just 25% and did not qualify for the runoff.
Letlow will be in a strong position to win in November in the solidly Republican state, which Trump carried by 22 points in 2024. Democrat Jamie Davis, a farmer, easily won the Democratic Senate nomination Saturday night.
Letlow has pledged to be a strong supporter of the president’s policies.
“I promise you this: When I get to the United States Senate, I will never back down from fighting for your America First agenda,” Letlow told the president during a telerally with Trump on Thursday night.
Letlow framed the race as the choice between “a real conservative fighter in the Senate, or whether we are going to send another career politician who does not want to save our country.” She touted her support for eliminating the Senate filibuster to help pass the Save America Act, a Trump-backed measure to overhaul U.S. election laws.
Fleming also tried to make the case that he was the staunchest Trump ally in the race, taking aim at Letlow’s past support for diversity, equity and inclusion policies and foreign aid. Letlow told NBC News earlier this year that she reversed her position on DEI when she “saw it for what it was” and has since been “fighting against it.”
But Trump’s backing helped boost Letlow, who also had help on the airwaves from allied super PAC.
She also touted endorsements from other top Louisiana Republicans, led by Gov. Jeff Landry. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Rep. Clay Higgins also backed Letlow.
Letlow is expected to join the Senate after serving nearly three terms in the House, where she also served on the powerful Appropriations Committee. She first came to Congress in 2021 after winning a special election following the death of her late husband. Luke Letlow, a former congressional aide who won a House election in 2020, died of Covid before he was sworn into office.
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As Supreme Court expands Trump’s immigration power, experts warn of steeper U.S. population decline
President Trump holds up a bill funding immigration enforcement after signing it in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, June 10, 2026, in Washington.
Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP
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Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP
Even before the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that President Trump has broad power to deport hundreds of thousands of migrants living legally in the U.S. under temporary protected status, David Bier feared the U.S. was slipping toward a demographic cliff.
“We’re destined to be there, in short order, there’s no question,” Bier said. “We’re already seeing a situation where most counties in the United States had more deaths than births.”
An expert on population and immigration at the libertarian Cato Institute, Bier believes the U.S. is beginning to look more like China, Italy and South Korea — nations that face rapid aging and population decline are seen as a crisis.
U.S. birthrates have been declining for decades. There are far too few children born each year to maintain a stable population.
Until last year, high rates of foreign immigration largely offset that trend. But for the first time since the 1930s, during the Great Depression, the U.S. now faces record low birthrates and low numbers of migrants at the same time.
“Our higher birthrates of a century ago are not coming back. There’s no way to have a sustainable fiscal and economic situation that doesn’t involve immigration,” Bier said.
Trump’s legal fight to end temporary protected status for hundreds of thousands of Haitians, Syrians and others living in the U.S. legally is only one part of a wider administration effort to squeeze immigration.
The Supreme Court also ruled this week that the administration has authority to block most asylum seekers from entering the country. Federal agents have also conducted raids in cities across the U.S., to accelerate deportations.
Last month, Trump issued an executive order that could make it harder for many migrants living in the U.S. without full legal status to use banking and financial services.
Many immigration opponents see these changes as progress. In a statement following this week’s Supreme Court decisions. A spokesman for the Federation for Immigration Reform said Trump should have full authority to direct who enters the U.S.
“Our immigration laws are written to be pro-enforcement, not anti-enforcement,” said FAIR’s Christopher Hajec.
But according to Cato’s Bier, Trump’s policies are already reshaping the demographics of communities, meaning there are fewer workers, consumers, taxpayers, and children in schools.
“If you’re not allowing immigration, you’re going to have [an aging and] a declining population and that creates all kinds of problems,” Bier said.
Economists say that without migrants, the number of young workers paying into Social Security will fall more rapidly; schools in many areas will close; and the number of young families having children will decline.
Census data already shows big changes to U.S. population
The immigration decline under Trump is dramatic. In 2024, roughly 2.7 million foreign migrants entered the U.S., according to the Census Bureau. This year, census experts predict that number could drop as low as 300,000. Some demographers believe the U.S. may be reaching a point where more migrants are leaving than entering.
Impacts of this massive shift on America’s wider population are already emerging. Studies by the Census Bureau, the Congressional Budget Office, and the Federal Reserve all point to a more rapidly aging national population under Trump.
Population growth in the U.S. fell by half in 2025 from the previous year, with five states losing population. Census data shows the total number of young Americans, those under age 25, is already falling nationwide.
William Frey, a demographer at the liberal-leaning Brookings Institution, described last week’s Supreme Court rulings as “alarming.” He believes without robust foreign immigration, more states will quickly see their populations stagnate or decline.
“Not just in big immigration states, but in places that have relatively small numbers of immigrants, you know, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska — those states require immigrants to get any population growth,” Frey said.
Even before Trump’s policies curbed immigration, the U.S. population was expected to decline later this century. Experts say low immigration rates will cause that downward trend to happen much sooner.
According to Frey, the U.S. has time to reverse course. But he believes the Trump administration is committed to lowering both legal and illegal immigration over the long term, a policy he described as dangerous.
“This is as clear as the nose on your face,” he said. “You’ve got to have this growth in the younger population if you’re going to survive. Immigration is a key part of that going forward.”
“America’s doors are closed”
Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff for policy, speaks with reports at the White House, Thursday, June 25, 2026, in Washington.
Jacquelyn Martin/AP
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Jacquelyn Martin/AP
The Trump administration sees this very differently, describing foreign migrants not as people who sustain state populations and economies, but as a social burden and a threat.
“America’s doors are closed fully to asylum seekers,” Stephen Miller, one of Trump’s top White House policy advisors, said on Thursday.
Speaking with reporters, Miller described the Supreme Court rulings as a victory and said ending birthright citizenship for the children of migrants born in the U.S. is the next step.
“This country doesn’t have a future if we don’t end birthright citizenship,” Miller said. Justices are expected to rule on birthright citizenship as early as next week.
This kind of opposition to both legal and illegal immigration is now widespread among conservatives, said Cato’s David Bier, who worked as a Republican congressional staffer on immigration policy.
He told NPR that when he talks to conservatives about the economic and demographic risks of closing the country’s doors to migrants, many answer with a cultural argument. “[They] would rather have a declining population of ‘true Americans’ than have an economy kept afloat by people who don’t share [their] values,” Bier said.
But if extremely low or zero-level immigration does become the new normal for the U.S., experts say it would swiftly remake the fabric of the country. The Census Bureau estimates that without robust migration in the coming years, total population loss by the end of this century could exceed 107 million people.
UTAH COUNTY, Utah (ABC4) — Utah County has declared a state of emergency.
According to an announcement from the Utah County Commissioner Skyler Beltran, the county is in a dire position due to the extensive wildfires in the area and high fire risk.
The announcement states that declaring the State of Emergency will allow the county to access additional resources, and notes there is no imminent threat to Utah County residents.
“We have utilized a tremendous amount of our resources (very early in the traditional fire season schedule) responding to the Iron Fire and continue to face ongoing recovery concerns,” the statement read. “This was even before the Maple Peak and Cherry fires, which have now merged and are moving toward the Iron Fire.”
The Iron Fire, which started last week, has burned over 40,000 acres. Around 22,830 of those acres were in Utah County. Reportedly, the county has limited resources available to help those who are evacuating from Juab County, including the 600 residents in the Town of Eureka.
Due to the influx in evacuees, the Utah County Commission says that more resources are necessary to help the evacuation shelters in Elberta, Utah. Additionally, due to the Iron Fire and other wildfires, Utah County is facing immense repair needs to avoid future flooding, loss of homes, and disruption to local economies and ecosystems.
There is “imminent threat” to public safety due to the damage.
The commission also asks the public to be vigilant when handling heavy equipment, using campfires or barbecues, and discharging fireworks, to avoid preventing fires.
Their statement added, “Our firefighters are exhausted, our resources are stretched thin and we are in a very vulnerable position.”
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