SOLVED

Mom Charged After Breakthrough in Decades-Old ‘Baby Mary’ Case

New DNA analysis led prosecutors to the deceased infant’s parents.

New Jersey officials announced charges Thursday against a woman they say is the mother of “Baby Mary,” an infant whose death had gone unsolved for decades, ABC 7 reported. The infant was discovered dead on Christmas Eve in 1984, found inside a plastic bag that was wrapped in a towel and later given the moniker “Baby Mary.” Now, following a multiyear investigation, new DNA analysis allowed for the identification of the baby’s parents and for charges to be filed, bringing an end to the nearly four-decade-old mystery, Morris County Prosecutor Robert Carroll announced Thursday. Officials said the baby’s mom was arrested in South Carolina earlier this year and charged with manslaughter. Prosecutors declined to share the mom’s name as she was a minor at the time of the alleged crime. Carroll said the man identified as the baby’s father is dead.