The Ellis Elementary School Parent Teacher Organization is raising funds for a memorial to slain 7-year-old Caden McWilliams.

7-year-old boy’s body was found in a storage unit

Before his horrific death, Caden McWilliams was a smiley 7-year-old boy who was beloved by students and teachers at Ellis Elementary School.

The Ellis Elementary School Parent Teacher Organization hopes to raise $5,000 online to build a memorial to Caden, including incorporating his memory in a mural outside the school and dedicating a bench or tree. The small tribute matters to those who knew the boy, said Christina Hafler, a teacher at the school who had Caden in some of her classes

“He deserves to be remembered in a beautiful way, and a respectful way, that honors the way he was,” she said. “Ever since we heard, we’ve wanted to do something.”

Caden attended Denver’s Ellis Elementary School from preschool to first grade, Hafler said. His mother, Elisha Pankey, unenrolled the boy from the school in August and said she would home-school him, according to a police affidavit released this week.

Four months later, police found Caden’s remains in a south Denver storage unit. The boy’s body had been encased in a 267-pound cement block inside a dog kennel. Police believe the child died in the cage over the summer after his mother and stepfather made him sleep there, the affidavit stated.

Caden weighed 27 pounds at the time of his death, about half what a boy his age should weigh. He had traces of meth and cocaine in his liver when he died, as well as multiple broken bones.

The medical examiner ruled his death a homicide, and the boy’s mother faces a charge of child abuse leading to death. His stepfather, Leland Pankey, has not been charged in connection with Caden’s death but remained in the Downtown Detention Center on other charges Friday.

Staff members at the school have struggled for months to explain Caden’s death to his peers, who are now in second grade, Hafler said. Whenever Caden walked into school for breakfast, other students wanted to sit next to him, she said. Hafler hopes the memorial will help the students process his death.

“This will give them something they can see and understand,” she said.

Hafler and others in the school community also hope to raise awareness for a future law that would allow parents in crisis to drop off their kids in a safe place, she said.

“(Caden’s death) has really opened up a lot of conversations in our community and school about some of the hidden tragedies we don’t see,” Hafler said.