On Christmas Eve in 1984, two young boys found the body of a newborn baby girl in a secluded park in Mendham Township, New Jersey.
She was wrapped in a towel and had been placed in a plastic bag, so young that her umbilical cord was still attached. Morris County Prosecutor Robert Carroll said Thursday that a medical examiner had determined that the baby had been alive when she was abandoned, according to CBS News.
The newborn was named “Baby Mary” by Rev. Michael Drury, who baptized the baby before she was interred. For nearly 40 years, police have been unable to identify her or her mother, despite pursuing leads. On Thursday, Carroll and other Morris County officials announced that Baby Mary’s mother had been identified, but since she was 17 at the time the baby was abandoned, they have not released her name.
Using new technology, law enforcement efforts across three states, and old-fashioned police work, investigators were able to identify the baby’s mother and father. They soon discovered that Baby Mary’s biological father had died in the nearly four decades since she was abandoned, and police found no evidence to suggest he knew anything about the pregnancy or the abandonment and death of his daughter.
A juvenile delinquency complaint was filed against Baby Mary’s biological mother on April 24, but authorities are just announcing it now. She was charged with one count of manslaughter, which would have been second-degree manslaughter if she had been an adult at the time of the baby’s death.
“This arrest is the culmination of decades of effort, across multiple generations of law enforcement. It is a tribute to the tenacity and dedication of the Morris County Prosecutor’s Office, our Major Crimes Unit, the Morris County Sheriff’s Office, and the Mendham Township Police Department,” Carroll said on Thursday. “The death and abandonment of this baby girl is a tragic loss and even after nearly 40 years, remains just as heartbreaking. Justice may not take the form the public has imagined all these years, but we believe with this juvenile delinquency complaint, justice is being served for Baby Mary. Nothing can right this terrible wrong. Thanks to the men and women who worked so diligently on this case, we hope the community is given a sense of closure.”
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Sheriff James Gannon added that young parents should know that “there is help available” through the Safe Haven Infant Protection Act, which didn’t exist in 1984.
“The legislation allows parents or their representatives to anonymously surrender a newborn baby at any hospital emergency room, police station, fire station, ambulance, first aid, or rescue squads that are staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If the baby appears to be 30 days old or less, and free of any abuse or neglect, the baby will be accepted with no questions asked,” he said.