Baby identified 3 decades after her body was found on Mississippi highway
Authorities in southern Mississippi have identified the remains of an infant whose death remained a mystery for more than three decades, and investigators say a woman who wrote a letter saying she was the baby's mother was found dead in her home last week.
A newborn at the time of her death, the girl became known to law enforcement and the community as "Mary Josephine" because a local funeral home gave her that name while preparing for the burial. Her body was discovered along the side of an interstate highway in Gulfport on Dec. 21, 1993, and a subsequent autopsy found she died from "blood loss and exposure," according to the Harrison County Sheriff's Office.
Investigators said the baby's umbilical cord was still attached and determined she had likely been born the previous day, said Othram, Inc., the laboratory that performed the testing that eventually identified her. The manner of death was ruled a homicide by the medical examiner in 1993. Authorities launched a homicide investigation at the time but were unable to locate any of the baby's family members.
Finally, in December 2023, a judge granted a request from investigators and the district attorney in Harrison County to exhume the baby's body in hopes of identifying her by DNA analysis, which had advanced considerably since her death 30 years earlier.
A DNA sample was collected and sent to Othram's laboratory in Houston for testing. Othram said it used the sample to build a complete DNA profile for the infant and parsed a database to connect the profile to potential family members.
Harrison County investigators received the results of those tests last week, including a forensic genetic genealogy assessment that flagged possible relatives of the newborn. Investigators conducted interviews based on the lab's results and identified a woman who they believed could be Mary Josephine's mother. On Oct. 10, they obtained a search warrant on the woman with the intention to conduct a DNA comparison and validate her possible relationship to the baby.
The day after investigators obtained the warrant, they tried to contact the woman who they thought might be the infant's mother at her home in Gautier, which is about 40 miles east of Gulfport. They ultimately entered the woman's home and found her dead by suicide.
Investigators also found a letter at the woman's home, which she had written. In it, the woman claimed to be the mother of Mary Josephine, according to the Harrison County sheriff.
