It happened in March 1991 on the streets of Chicago, when Latasha Pulliam saw Shenosha Richard playing at the park outside. Detectives say it was there that Latasha Pulliam lured the trusting 6-year-old to her home with the promise of a bag of potato chips and a trip to the movies.
Instead, Latasha Pulliam presented Shenosha Richard to her live-in-boyfriend, an older guy named Dwight Jordan. Inside the apartment, Shenosha was raped, stabbed, and tortured with an object. She was also beaten about the head and assaulted with a hammer. When she was dead, the girl was tossed into a garbage can that sat on the back porch. Her leg was sticking out of it when she was found. Court records give even more details that were found in the autopsy report.
Dwight Jordan used a bottle of white shoe polish and inserted it into Shenosha’s rectum while she screamed for help. Dwight told Latasha to get a hammer. Latasha Pulliam then wet the straight end with saliva and inserted it into the little girl’s vagina while Dwight continued to insert the shoe polish bottle into the rectum.
After the rape, Dwight Jordan left the apartment, and Latasha placed a cord around Shenosha’s neck and took her to an empty apartment in the building.
At the abandoned apartment, Shenosha was struck with a board with a nail sticking out of it, which pierced her heart. Latasha set a fire to scare the girl. Shenosha begged for her life and promised not to tell anyone about what happened except for her mother. Latasha tightened the cord around Shenosha’s neck, strangled her until she was dead, and threw her body into the garbage can.
Witnesses also said that her body was burned.
In an interview, Latasha gave her account of what happened, and it differed from the signed confession that she gave decades earlier. In the interview, she stated that she had no intention of luring Shenosha Richard to her home to be killed that day and had no idea that her boyfriend, a 50-year-old drunk, was in the house.
According to the new version, after Latasha told Shenosha to go into the other room, she went into the kitchen to “get high.” Once she heard Shenosha screaming, she tried to help her but blacked out for a while after Dwight became angry and struck her. When she regained consciousness, she did what Dwight instructed her to do.
Latasha alleges the following:
- Her boyfriend was abusive and often threatened her with knives.
- She did what he told her to do because he was the man. He was the boss.
- On the day of the murder, Latasha mostly assisted Dwight but didn’t do the killing.
When the doctor of Most Evil asked her how she knew the victim, she stated that Shenosha was always asking Latasha to watch her because nobody was at her own home. If you have a chance to see the interview, the expression that Latasha gives when she makes the comment is as if she is blaming the girl’s mother for not watching her. In fact, her entire attitude in that interview made it obvious that she felt no remorse for the crime that she committed.
Latasha Pulliam’s own background is horrid. She was abused as a child and later abused her own kids. A woman in the neighborhood warned Shenosha’s mother, Emma Richard, about her, and Shenosha was told to stay away from Latasha.
Latasha Pulliam was convicted and placed on Illinois’ death row. Her sentenced was later commuted to life in prison without parole.
Dwight Jordan died in prison from complications of diabetes.
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