The newborn girl didn't live long enough to be named. Her life ended in a bathtub in a Burnsville apartment one night more than two years ago. Her body was never found.

Now authorities are seeking justice for the child no one knew. Her mother told police she drowned her daughter because her boyfriend threatened to kill them both if she didn't get rid of the baby.

Samantha A. Heiges, 21, of Coon Rapids, was charged Thursday with second-degree murder and first-degree manslaughter in Dakota County District Court.

The baby's father, Erik R. Matlock, 22, of Blaine, was charged with aiding an offender in the crime.

Legal experts said it is one of the few murder cases charged without a body.

The most recent case of its kind in Dakota County, involving a missing 5-year-old girl in 1993, ended in acquittal.

That has not deterred Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom.

"We felt charges were warranted, given the information from the suspects," Backstrom said. He said the lack of a body "is disappointing but not fatal to a successful prosecution."

Although two people told investigators that Heiges had looked pregnant to them, the only person who saw the child alive was her mother, authorities said.

The criminal complaint gave this account:

Heiges told police she delivered her daughter about 1 a.m. on May 5, 2005, in her bathtub. She told investigators she held the girl under water until she stopped gasping for air, then put the body in a towel-lined shoebox.

Felt threatened

She said she did it because of the threats from Matlock, her live-in boyfriend. She said Matlock put the shoebox into the building garbage chute two days later while she was at work. She said she had never gone to a doctor and only told one friend, who later told police she saw Heiges pregnant.

Matlock told police he fathered the baby, but never saw her. He said Heiges, who wore bulky clothes to hide her pregnancy, came into the bedroom one night and said, "It's over, it's done."

He said she wouldn't tell what happened to the baby, but he found blood all over the bathroom and cleaned it up. He denied threatening to kill Heiges or the child or putting the body in the garbage chute.

Heiges moved out of the apartment in the Willow Ponds complex Nov. 30. Police knew nothing about the death until Jan. 1, when Heiges' new boyfriend reported that she tearfully confided in him after a few drinks that she had drowned her baby. She told him she put the body in a garbage bag and threw it down the garbage chute, contradicting the story she later told police.

Searching for evidence

Burnsville police went to the apartment and took swabs from the bathroom.