Former Airman learns son died a year ago

Former airman shocked to learn his son has been dead for a year
By David Allen, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Wednesday, April 16, 2008



URUMA, Okinawa — It’s been a year since 8-year-old Jordan Peterson died from injuries allegedly inflicted in a beating by his stepfather at his off-base home in Uruma.

But it was just last week that Jordan’s real dad found out his son was gone.

“You can’t believe my shock,” Damion Peterson said Monday in a telephone interview from his San Antonio home. “All in one day a friend said he had information that the military on Okinawa had investigated the possibility that Jordan was abused. And then I called my ex-mother-in-law to find out about the abuse and she tells me he’s been dead for a year.”

That was April 7. A Google search of his son’s name then brought home the horrible truth.

Peterson’s sister found a series of stories in Stars and Stripes that detailed Jordan’s death and the arrest — and later release — of the boy’s stepfather, Roberto Deleon, by Japanese police who alleged the child was beaten to death.

“My brother was devastated,” Marlo Saenz said. “The divorce was horrible, but he had always hoped to see Jordan again. He was the sweetest little boy.”

Peterson, 32-year-old former airman now living in Texas, said he had been estranged from his ex-wife for four years and she refused to let him have contact with his son during most of that time. He said she left him while they were living in Germany and he lost the ability to have Jordan for the summer visitations spelled out in their divorce decree.
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