Married couple charged in "heartbreaking" 30-year-old missing baby case in North Carolina

A man and his wife have been arrested in the death of a missing baby whose remains were found in a trash can rack on the North Carolina coast more than 30 years ago, police said Monday.

The Nags Head Police Department said in a news release that Scott Gordon Poole, 54, and his wife, Robin Lynn Bynum, 51, were arrested on Thursday by the Alexander County Sheriff's Office. Both from Taylorsville, they're charged with concealing the birth of a child.

Poole and Byrum were booked into the custody of the Alexander County Sheriff's Office with bond set at $250,000 for both of them. They have since been transferred and are now at the Dare County Detention Center, officials said. It couldn't be determined on Monday if they have attorneys.

In April 1991, Nags Head police officers responding to a call found the remains of an infant who had been dead for some time, the sheriff's office said. A medical examiner determined the child died of blunt force trauma and asphyxiation, according to the news release.

Investigators began a new look into the case in 2019 and sent the baby's rib bone to a Texas lab for forensic analysis. The lab recovered human DNA, and another analysis led to a married couple living in Taylorsville and known to have been living on the Outer Banks around the time the infant was found.

"The tragedy of this child's death and the manner in which his body was disposed of is compounded by the fact that, until now, no one has been found responsible for this incredibly heartbreaking act," said Nags Head Police Chief Phil Webster.  "But, through the hard work of Nags Head Police investigators and our law enforcement partners in the case, those who did this will be held accountable for a death that has remained unsolved for three decades."

In:
• North Carolina