Parents of baby left in ditch near St. Cloud in 1980 have been identified
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STEARNS COUNTY, Minn. (FOX 9) - Over 40 years after a baby was found dead on the side of a road in St. Augusta, Minnesota, investigators have identified her parents.
The Stearns County Sheriff's Office announced on Thursday that the investigation into DNA evidence in the cold case led to the discovery of the parents of the newborn baby who was left in a ditch back in 1980. But they are not able to charge anyone in relation to the baby's death, due to lack of proof that a person committed a crime.
Back in April 1980, the Stearns County Sheriff's Office found the infant along 250th Street, west of County Road 136 in St. Augusta, which is south of St. Cloud. The baby was found dead about five feet from the road. She was then identified as Baby Jane Doe.
Baby Jane Doe was taken for an autopsy, which determined she was born alive and full term, with no anatomic cause of death, authorities said. She was then buried at a cemetery in St. Cloud.
The sheriff's office, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) and the Ramsey County Medical Examiner's Office exhumed Baby Jane Doe in 2018 in an attempt to get a DNA profile. But a profile wasn't obtained, and she was returned to her resting place.
In 2019, investigators re-examined evidence from the initial scene but found nothing of note. Then, in 2020, authorities looked into histology blocks from Baby Jane Doe's autopsy, and were able to get a DNA profile from a portion of the baby's spleen.
With the help of Parabon NanoLabs, a company that provides DNA phenotyping and genetic genealogy analysis for law enforcement, investigators were able to identify potential grandparents of the baby in 2021.
Through the potential identity of Baby Jane Doe's grandparents and the examination of a histology block from a deceased woman's heart, the baby's potential mother was found in 2021, law enforcement said.
The DNA profile from the woman's heart was compared to Baby Jane Doe's profile, which showed that genetic results from Baby Jane Doe are "1,700 times more likely to occur" in a biological child of the woman, than someone unrelated to the woman. The BCA deemed that evidence strong enough to show a biological mother-daughter relationship.
In 2024, Parabon NanoLab found three men who could be potentially be the father of Baby Jane Doe. Investigators gathered DNA from one of those men. His DNA profile was compared to the baby's, which found that the genetic results from Baby Jane Doe are "670,000,000 times more likely to occur" in a biological child of the woman and the man, compared to someone unrelated to them. The BCA says this DNA evidence from the man and woman shows they are biological parents of Baby Jane Doe.
In interviews with the man in May and June 2024, the man said he had no knowledge of the baby, authorities said.
The sheriff's office says after their investigation, they have now closed Baby Jane Doe's case because they have "not been able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt a particular person committed a crime related to the death of Baby Jane Doe." They did say not being able to interview the baby's biological mother, due to her being deceased, factored into the closure of the case.