Months after dead newborn girl was found in river, identity eludes police

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Months after dead newborn girl was found in river, identity eludes police

Updated: August 2, 2012 - 9:40 PM

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The porcelain angels and the bracelet found in a canvas bag with the body of a newborn girl found floating in the Mississippi River were so unusual that law enforcement officials thought they would surely lead to the girl's parents. But nearly a year later, the death of the infant girl remains a mystery.

The death in September 2011 motivated lawmakers to enhance Minnesota's Safe Haven law, the intention being to give distraught mothers more options to legally abandon their babies in safe places rather than harming or abandoning them or leaving them to die.

The cause of the baby's death remains undetermined. Police aren't certain whether she was alive or dead before she was wrapped in a green T-shirt and two plastic bags, placed in a canvas bag and set afloat near Winona.

Boaters discovered her, police believe, a short time after the bag was placed in the river. Drew Evans, a senior special agent with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, remains certain that the items found in the bag with her could solve the case if the right people saw them.

Images can be seen on the BCA's Facebook page of the bag and the items placed with the baby. Anonymous tips on this case can be left with the Winona County Sheriff's Department at 507-457-6530.

JEREMY OLSON