CLEVELAND — From straight-A student with a 4.0 GPA — to accused murderer. 3News Investigates is digging into the history of the Cleveland mother charged with killing two of her own children, whose bodies were found on the city’s east side.
Aliyah Henderson faces two counts of aggravated murder in the death of half sisters 10-year-old Amor Wilson and 8-year-old Mila Chatman. The girls’ badly decomposed bodies were found inside suitcases in shallow graves near East 162nd Street and Midland Avenue in the Collinwood neighborhood — discovered on March 2 after a resident reported a suspected dead body.
Missing juvenile report
Court records and police documents obtained by 3News Investigates paint a picture of a young woman whose life began to unravel in the summer of 2014. According to a Cleveland police report, at 16, Henderson had been a straight-A student with a 4.0 GPA — but by that fall, she had cut off her friends, blocked family members on social media, and ran away from home. She was reported missing on July 6, 2014, and was found safe about 36 hours later, just blocks from her East 105th Street home — the same east side neighborhood where, more than a decade later, the bodies of her two daughters would be found.
Records also show that just weeks after she ran away from home, Henderson herself was a victim of an assault. According to a Cleveland police report, in August 2014, the then-16-year-old was attacked by a group of juveniles on an RTA bus near Woodland Avenue — beaten and dragged off bus by her hair. No suspects were ever identified.
Family dispute
According to a Cleveland police report, in July 2016, Henderson was the victim of a domestic violence attack at her East 105th Street home — the same address where she grew up. A family member was arrested after police say he threw her into a wall, punched her, and attempted to hit her with a crutch. A neighbor told officers this was a regular occurrence. Henderson was taken to University Hospitals with a possible broken arm.
Neighborly dispute
Records show that in the months leading up to the discovery of the girls’ bodies, Henderson was living just blocks from where they were found. In April 2025, she reported a neighbor stealing her packages. But by February 2026 — just weeks before the bodies were discovered — the tables had turned. According to a Cleveland police report, a neighbor came to the Fifth District to report that Henderson had been threatening them, following them to nearby stores, and showing up uninvited on their front porch. The case was filed as menacing by stalking…