Hershall Creachbaum Jr.

Hershall Creachbaum Jr. was a seven year old boy from Dayton, Ohio, who had autism, cerebral palsy and could not speak and used a wheelchair. He became known nationally in the summer of 2025 after his mother and her boyfriend reported him kidnapped, a report that investigators soon determined was false. Hershall had in fact already been dead for weeks by the time the alarm was raised, and the case that followed exposed serious failures in the system meant to protect disabled children.

Hershall was reported missing from his family's home on Xenia Avenue in Dayton on the morning of July 12, 2025. Within hours, Dayton police arrested his mother's boyfriend, Michael Kendrick, and soon after his mother, Ashley Johnson, as investigators grew suspicious that the kidnapping story did not add up. That evening, police announced that a boy's remains believed to be Hershall's had been found in a wooded embankment near the McClure Street bridge along U.S. Route 35, not far from the family's home.

During questioning, Johnson and Kendrick admitted that Hershall had actually died weeks earlier, in late May 2025, while Johnson was hospitalized for surgery. According to court records, Kendrick told investigators he had pushed Hershall, causing him to fall and strike his body, and that the boy died in the shower the following day. Kendrick said he kept the boy's body in the home, at one point in a freezer, before eventually moving it in a suitcase to a grassy field and later concealing the remains in bags near the bridge. By the time police recovered the remains, the body was skeletal, which complicated efforts to pin down an exact cause of death.

The case drew intense public attention in Dayton and beyond because of how vulnerable Hershall was and because of questions about whether the system had failed him. A state child fatality review later found that children services agencies in both Montgomery and Clark counties, where Hershall and his sister had lived at different times, made procedural mistakes in handling the family's case in the months before his death. Community members held vigils, built a growing memorial at the McClure Street bridge, and the family has since worked with the city of Dayton on plans for a permanent tribute.

On October 30, 2026, Michael Kendrick pleaded guilty in Montgomery County Common Pleas Court to one count of murder, three counts of gross abuse of a corpse, one count of endangering children and two counts of tampering with evidence in connection with Hershall's death. He is scheduled to be sentenced on November 12, 2026. Ashley Johnson, who was also indicted in connection with the case, has faced separate charges. Hershall's family and advocates for disabled children have said they hope his case leads to lasting changes in how at risk children are monitored and protected.