Throughout multiple talks including one released just a few days ago, Sister Bonnie Cordon, Young Women general president, has spoke about the loss of her Grandson, Derek within Church approved channels. What she doesn’t say is that the death of this child is surrounded by horrific details that contradict witness statements that involve allegations of child abuse, arrests, homicide, and aggravated Child Abuse charges. We expose this story shining a light on the details of a story where nothing adds up. Everyone in the Church seems willing to use this story to promote the LDS Church but no one wants to clearly explain what happened to this little boy.
RESOURCES:
Elder Holland joking about Cordon’s being poor www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dp8dfu3TEG0&t=3180s
2019 BYU Women’s Conference – https://youtu.be/8xGA6KpBk5I?t=5672
BYU Devotional Feb 4th 2020 – https://youtu.be/cLLShkcaWWM?t=935
www.thechurchnews.com/2020/2/4/23215865/sister-cordon-byu-devotional-prayer
BYU Devotional Feb 4th 2020 – https://youtu.be/cLLShkcaWWM?t=935
Hear Him Recent https://youtu.be/oxpr87qHhzU
LDS Mag getting in on the action – https://latterdaysaintmag.com/how-president-cordon-learned-to-hearhim-after-her-grandsons-death/
The 4 Page Report – https://www.myflfamilies.com/childfatality/reports/2016-344471.pdf
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- Point out the important facts and anomalies
- Gently Shook him and put hand over his mouth – we know from the obituary that little Derek had a learning disability, which assuredly would make it more difficult for a 2.5 year old to grasp what might be happening as he wakes up from a nightmare in a strange place. Was she possibly admitting in part to a minimized version of what she did or is it a misdirection that takes away focus from the father?
- The Father imposes he only was present and aware of the situation once it had gone south
- Midnight and leaves hotel at 12:53 AM (almost an hour from initial event to leaving for the hospital
- Medical Team made CONCLUSION Hana shook the child too hard and that the father was neglectful in not responding faster
- The Family did not call 911 in a in the face of an emergency in a foreign city.
- The Family did not try to grab their sister who is a “RN” (Registered Nurse) who is also on vacation in the same hotel as they are.
- The mother, Hana drove alone to the hospital with the child
- Hana is arrested on December 9th and charged with Aggravated Child Abuse (child hasn’t died yet as he passes away the following day on the 10th).
- Sometime between the event and the date of this report on May 2017 the State Attorney isn’t going to prosecute
- Neither parents could give an explanation that was consistent with the injuries and the investigation after 5 months deemed the mother action’s impulsive and violent and the father’s inaction having led to this child’s death, all while the entire Cordon family is on vacation in a different state with their RN sister across the hall.
- 11 month old these parents were allowed to go back to in spite of this being a “very high risk” case with “out of control” parenting (THIS IS A QUESTION)
- Gently Shook him and put hand over his mouth – we know from the obituary that little Derek had a learning disability, which assuredly would make it more difficult for a 2.5 year old to grasp what might be happening as he wakes up from a nightmare in a strange place. Was she possibly admitting in part to a minimized version of what she did or is it a misdirection that takes away focus from the father?
12. From December 9th 2016 to May 11th 2017, the State of Florida has maintained that this was a homicide caused by the parents of Derek Cordon to little Derek with the parents offering no satisfactory explanation.
- Contradictions between the report and what other sources such as LDS material says
- Bonnie H. Cordon was named the Young Women general president on March 31, 2018. https://youtu.be/8xGA6KpBk5I?t=5672 – Weird that she says “Suspicion that someone was getting away with something” when that seems to be exactly what happened but not about the same thing. – they are all at the airport together going home.
- “he unexpectedly passed away”
- Something “Stepford Wives” about these women (I asked myself “Where would people never notice a town full of robots?”. Connecticut.)
- Feb 4th 2020 BYU Devotional https://youtu.be/cLLShkcaWWM?t=935
- “In the middle of the fourth night, little Derek stopped breathing, and his parents rushed him to the hospital” – That is not what happened. Why does she want the story framed this way?
- Surely since she was there, she knows that Hana drove the child to the hospital alone. She says she stayed behind with the family. Surely she remembers her son was there with her.
- Surely she is aware that they didn’t rush but instead took almost an hour to head there?
- Surely she finds it strange that her son and daughter in law didn’t rush to grab his Registered Nurse Sister across the hall. (AND WHY DIDN’T BONNIE?)
- She prayed that little Derek would feel good enough to rejoin them for family activities? The injuries were serious – How could she be naive enough to think this was some minor health issue?
- Why is she creating a narrative where the Holy Ghost helps her through her ignorance about to share with her that her grandson has died now knowing how serious this whole thing is. Why is she hijacking this story for the purpose of creating a faith promoting story that ignores the facts?
- “The Answer was so far from my thoughts” juxtaposed with this talk is in 2020 and surely she grasps the full scope of her grandson’s death
- Her expressions of surprise and shock and lacking understanding till then Holy Ghost helps her is insane.
- While she attributes it to the Holy Ghost she admits she knew Derek died almost 48 hours before he died. Don’t allow her to sweep that under the rug giving credit to Mormonism’s Holy Ghost. She knew how bad this was.
- Hear Him Recent https://youtu.be/oxpr87qHhzU
- “We were on a family vacation, and an unexpected situation happened where our grandson…. Was ……. Ah…. all of a sudden stopped breathing, and we lost him.
- Again she admits sort of grasping that she knew that while he wouldn’t die for another 48 hours almost that he was lost.
- She says they spent three days with him in a hospital but records indicate the event took place around midnight on the night of the 8th/morning of the 9th and that he arrived at the hospital on the early morning of December 9th 2016 and he was pronounced deceased on December 10th at 7:40 PM and the obituary agrees ( https://www.sundbergolpinmortuary.com/obituary/Derek-Cordon )
- Obituary https://www.sundbergolpinmortuary.com/obituary/Derek-Cordon
- “Although he struggled to learn how to talk, many of his first words and phrases were about trucks, such as “two-ton tanker truck”
- “Although he struggled to learn how to talk, many of his first words and phrases were about trucks, such as “two-ton tanker truck”
- Bonnie H. Cordon was named the Young Women general president on March 31, 2018. https://youtu.be/8xGA6KpBk5I?t=5672 – Weird that she says “Suspicion that someone was getting away with something” when that seems to be exactly what happened but not about the same thing. – they are all at the airport together going home.
Cordon XMAS https://mormonismlive.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/CordonXmas.png
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As a former DCF investigator for Florida, it’s likely DCF (what they call CPS in FL) reached out to Utah CPS for more information about their involvement with the family as part of their investigation. (That is likely part of the redacted portions.) As an investigator, I would have immediately removed other children in their care (which was department policy when I worked there about 10 years ago) while I did my investigation (which is perhaps why in the story at the airport, the other child is not mentioned.) If the family was a secure enough environment, I would have placed the child with a family member, but doing background checks and home studies would have taken awhile, especially if I had to coordinate with another state. Conjecture: Given that the family didn’t live in Florida and there is no formal charge, it’s possible they referred out to UT. Utah would have no reason to keep an ongoing case open as this moment of alleged abuse didn’t happen within their jurisdiction but it’s possible family interviews gave them enough information to continue some kind of services in UT (which also would have been redacted.)
I’d be curious when the family left Florida, why there isn’t an arrest record for Hana (even though the case wasn’t pursued, the arrest should be visible), and what DCF did to ensure the safety of their other child following this event. Additionally, even though Bonnie mentions staying back at the hotel and praying, I wonder if that’s not accurate and dad stayed at the hotel to watch the 11 month old because they didn’t even wake Bonnie. Certainly Bonnie would have woken RN sister right away. Perhaps Hana went to the hospital as an attempt to not bring attention to the family-at-large.
I have listened to this podcast twice. I am very concerned that no one called 911. I am also concerned that no one went with Hana and child to the hospital. Wouldn’t any relative have jumped in the car with them? It would have been great if it was the husband, but it could have been anyone including Bonnie Cordon herself. It is extremely dangerous to drive when you are stressed and navigating the streets of a town that you are not familiar with, not to mention at the same time caring for a child who is trying to survive. This is a very troubling story. Very poor decisions were made.
Remember that time you posted their home address?
Does that still seem like a good idea?
There was a lot to this episode and I appreciated the efforts to present the info in a meaningful way.
If you do an update on this sometime it would be most interesting to focus on the psychology of how and why a person does what Mrs Cordon has done. There are easy tie ins tonother apocryphal LDS stories. You suggested that perhaps this is a means to process or heal from something hard, it would be great to get a professional psych to speak to that. How do we as humans process terrible things? How do we process conflicting internal data? She is telling the story but clearly leaving out details of which she is aware but that she can’t come to terms with.
I think there are many weeds amongst which you guys nearly got lost and could easily get lost in a future episode. The forensics and analysis of apparent discrepancies in Cordons telling and retelling and retelling of the story don’t seem as interesting as the why. I suspect Cordon is an innocent grandma in this, although i could be wrong. I don’t imagine that she was deliberately lying about details of this case, more reframing that which she can’t process or doesn’t want to process.
Thanks for your interesting content.
It sounds like the son may have been autistic (with or without a diagnosis) in this case all parties involved may believe that the abuse was justified. Unfortunately autistic children are much more likely to experience abuse. Mormonism is very ableist and it is no surprise to me that Bonnie has given a spiritual narrative to this situation. The child was pregnant-determined to die and was probably in their mind sent to be a trial to the parents. I’m devastated.