Baby June was found floating 4 years ago. Florida cops tell how they solved the mystery

Four years ago, a Palm Beach County sheriff’s deputy made a promise: “Rest assured we are doing everything physically possible that we can do in this case.” An infant girl had been found dead, floating in the ocean, by an off-duty firefighter.

On Thursday, that promise came true.

The sheriff’s office announced that Baby June’s mother has been arrested. The news was made public at a live-streamed briefing that included that deputy, Capt. Steve Strivelli.

“This young unidentified child was found floating in the ocean off Boynton Inlet and was gut-wrenching to all of us in the community,” Strivelli said.

Detective Brittany Christofell, a lead investigator in the case, announced that Arya Singh, 29, was the mother of the infant.

Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg said Singh is being charged with first-degree murder.

Detectives said that Singh told them she had not known she was pregnant until she delivered the baby, and did not know if the baby was alive or dead at birth.

“By the time the baby went into the inlet she was already deceased,” Christofell said at Thursday’s news conference. “She just said she didn’t know what to do with her and she just decided that that’s where she was going to dispose of her.”

The sheriff’s office crime lab, using DNA, had obtained information about a potential father before learning the mother’s identify.

“The father was very cooperative,” Christofell said. “He knew nothing about this baby. He said that he had a girlfriend around that time that told him that she had been pregnant but had taken care of it. He was thinking she had an abortion. He ended up being the father. We had the DNA tested and we learned he was the father.

“So now we had a suspect as to the possible mother and we were able to obtain a covert DNA sample from her and confirm that she was the mother.”

Detectives found a piece of garbage Singh had discarded and used that to capture her DNA, Christofell said.

Search warrants of phone and GPS records connected the mother to the Boynton Beach Inlet about two days before the baby was found because she had searched the web about the inlet, Christofell said.

Singh chose the ocean inlet, detectives learned, because “she liked the area,” Christofell said. Singh said she did not discuss her plans with anyone beforehand, investigators said. Singh also searched news articles that appeared hours after the baby was found on June 1, 2018, according to detectives.

“She never came forward at the time,” Christofell said, adding that Singh confessed to detectives after she was arrested on Thursday.

“The death of Baby June was a terrible tragedy for our community four years ago. And it was compounded by the fact that we could not hold anyone accountable right away. This case became cold,” Aronberg said, before he praised the department and its team for making the arrest. “Today is a good day for justice.”

Deputies at the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office initially used DNA from Baby June and compared it with DNA details in a database against more than 700 babies that had been born in Palm Beach and Broward counties around the time investigators believed Baby June had been born.

On June 1, 2018, the baby girl was initially believed to have drifted up from the waters in nearby Broward County when the firefighter, who had been boating through Boynton Beach Inlet, found her floating.

Detectives learned the baby was born May 30 and was 2 days old when she was found dead in the inlet.

“We need to find out what happened,” Capt. Strivelli said four years ago.

On Thursday, after the suspect’s arrest, Christofell said that upon arrest at her Boynton Beach home the mother “was very nervous, mostly about herself and her future.” Singh is being held on no bond at the main detention center in Palm Beach County.

Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said advancements in DNA and scientific advancements helped crack the cold case.

“It’s a whole new world as far as technology is concerned. We’re fortunate that we have people here that understand that and can use it,” he said. “So you can pretty much figure this won’t be the last time we’re going to use this without a doubt.”