A trans-identified male who confessed to manually strangling an 11-month-old girl walked out of an Indiana prison in late December 2025 — and the local prosecutor’s office found out the same way everyone else did: from the public.
Jonathan Richardson, who uses the name Autumn Cordellione, had been handed a 55-year sentence for the murder of his infant stepdaughter. He served fewer than half of those years before the Indiana Department of Corrections quietly released him without alerting a single local official.
The baby had been left in Richardson’s care when he killed her. His own friends came to visit that day and said something seemed off — he turned them away at the door. He later showed up at a neighbor’s house asking them to dial 911.
At the hospital, the child was pronounced dead. The cause: manual strangulation.
Richardson had called the infant a “little fcking btch.”
The Vanderburgh County Prosecutor’s Office went public on March 26 with a community alert after Richardson was spotted out in the open.
Prosecutor Diana Moers confirmed her office had been given zero advance notice of the release. She pointed to House Bill 1250 as the fix — a pending measure that would legally require the Department of Corrections to alert local prosecutors before a serious violent felon walks free.
The outlet Reduxx, which first broke the story of his release, reported that Richardson’s early exit from prison may be directly tied to a legal battle he waged from behind bars — one that ended with taxpayers on the hook for his gender surgeries.
In the fall of 2024, U.S. District Judge Richard Young of the Southern District of Indiana handed Richardson a significant legal victory, ruling that the state’s refusal to provide him a sex-change operation amounted to “cruel and unusual punishment.” The judge ordered the Department of Corrections to move forward with the procedure without delay.
Richardson’s original surgical wish list was extensive: breast implants, a brow lift and reduction, a uterus transplant, gluteal implants, hair removal, and more. What he ultimately received was a penile inversion surgery and an orchiectomy — the removal of the testicles.
He also separately sued the state in 2024, claiming his religious rights as a Muslim were being violated because he was not permitted to wear a hijab while incarcerated.
The child’s mother fought back during the court proceedings, submitting a written statement in opposition to the surgery request. Her words made her fears plain: “On the day he murdered my child, I personally observed Plaintiff with a fresh bleeding tattoo of my child’s name on his arm while I was at the hospital that evening. I live in fear for myself and my children of the day [Richardson] is released from prison, which largely increases at the thought that [his] identity may be concealed upon release.”
Her concern was not abstract. Following his release, Richardson built out a presence across multiple social media platforms and began posting explicit content through the subscription site OnlyFans.
Authorities do not know exactly where in Vanderburgh County Richardson is living. A source who spoke with Reduxx said he has been staying at a women’s shelter.
What Richardson has made public on social media is a relationship with another trans-identified male — one also convicted of killing a baby. Cory Wallace was sentenced to 72 years in 2016 for burning down his own home to hide the fact that he had beaten his four-month-old son to death.
The murdered girl’s mother had begged the court not to let Richardson disappear into the world with a new face. Her warning went unheeded.
