Background: Lanaya Cardwell is led to a law enforcement vehicle by authorities (WAFB/YouTube). Inset: Nevaeh Allen (Hambrick Family Mortuary).
A trial is set to commence in Louisiana early next year in a grisly case of a child”s apparent murder after the girl’s mother is said to have rejected a plea deal from prosecutors.
Lanaya Cardwell, 28, turned down a deal that would have given her 10 years or less in prison on a charge of cruelty to juveniles, Baton Rouge ABC affiliate WBRZ reported. Instead, her entire future will be on the line when she appears in court in February on a charge of second-degree murder.
The case is more than four years old, but its gruesome details have not been forgotten. It began on the morning of Sept. 4, 2021, when 2-year-old Nevaeh Allen was at her Baton Rouge home with her mother, Cardwell, and Cardwell’s boyfriend, 34-year-old Phillip Gardner.
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On that morning, the toddler picked up her mom’s contact lenses while she was getting ready for work, damaging one of them, according to arrest warrants obtained by local newspaper The Advocate. This is said to have enraged Cardwell, who then allegedly punched the toddler in the torso “with a closed fist,” causing the child to fall and hit her head on a bathroom cabinet.
Cardwell proceeded to drag the child to another room, the warrants — citing alleged recollections from Gardner — stated, with the man saying he couldn’t see what transpired in the other room but it sounded “like two adults fighting.” Soon after, Nevaeh came out with a large bruise on her forehead.
The child was clearly hurt, according to the court documents also reported on by local CBS affiliate WAFB. While her mother was at work, Nevaeh is said to have complained to Gardner about stomach pains and would not eat. The man told police that he went to sleep and that when he woke up later that day, he found her unconscious.
Gardner reportedly said he tried to perform CPR — but then sprung into a different sort of action. Instead of calling 911, he admitted to stuffing the child’s body into a “small suitcase,” leaving his cellphone at home, and driving to Mississippi with other children in the car, where he made a “makeshift grave deep in the woods” and put the child there, per the court documents.
He then allegedly threw Nevaeh’s clothes in the garbage and drove home to file a “false missing persons report.” It is unclear whether Gardner and Cardwell communicated in this time period about what had transpired.
The Baton Rouge Police Department reported arriving to the couple’s home on the 12600 block of La Belle Ave in response to the “missing” child. A search was launched for Nevaeh, and as it proceeded, one of her siblings said she was “in the forest,” though no one knew what that meant at the time, according to WBRZ.
Two days after her killing, on Sept. 26, 2021, the child’s body was found in a “wooded area” in Hancock County, Mississippi.
An autopsy was conducted, finding “several bruises on the girl’s face and head, swelling to the brain and marks on her face ‘consistent with that of a handprint,'” per The Advocate. “The girl’s thighs and buttocks were covered in bruises. The coroner reportedly also observed injuries on the girl’s abdominal wall, ‘which were consistent with being punched in the abdomen.'”
The affidavit added that a forensic pathologist told police “it cannot be ruled out that the victim was still alive at the time that Gardner placed her in the suitcase and suffocated to death prior to succumbing to the other injuries.” Cardwell and Gardner were both charged with second-degree murder less than a week after the child was killed.
As Law&Crime previously reported, Cardwell spoke publicly about her child’s claimed disappearance the very day the crimes transpired.
“I don’t know what could have happened; I don’t know what went wrong. I wish I would have stayed home from work,” Cardwell said in an apparently emotional interview with a reporter — as kids stand and play behind her. “This morning I woke up, me and the fam went to the store … Naveah, the little girl, my little boy, and her daddy brought me to work, and that’s the last time I seen my baby.”
Gardner was convicted last week of second-degree murder and obstruction of justice. He was sentenced to life in prison.
After Gardner’s trial, East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore reflected on the case.
“This trial took an emotional toll on all people involved, especially the family of Nevaeh Allen, who miss the bubbly and beautiful child she was,” Moore said, per local NBC affiliate WVLA. “We are grateful to the jury who spent nearly two weeks exercising the utmost care and diligence. This case was clearly emotional to the jurors who heard these facts. Nothing can bring back this child who was murdered, but justice is done when those responsible for Nevaeh’s death are held accountable for their crimes.”
Cardwell’s trial is expected to begin on Feb. 2. She faces life in prison if convicted of second-degree murder.
Jerry Lambe contributed to this report.
