‘Baby Michael’ was found dead in trash bag 21 years ago. NC cops just arrested his mom

Nearly 21 years after a baby was found inside a trash bag on the side of the road in North Carolina, detectives tracked down the mother and arrested her, authorities said.

The highly publicized case is now closed, 12 days before the 21st anniversary of “Baby Michael,” Cumberland County Sheriff Ennis W. Wright said in a news release.

Using DNA from “Baby Michael” as a guide, detectives drove to Burke County — more than 200 miles west of where the baby was found — to interview Deborah Riddle O’Conner, 54. She told detectives she was the baby’s mother.

O’Conner was arrested and charged with first-degree murder, according to the news release.

The case began March 3, 1999, when a plastic trash bag was tossed from a moving vehicle on Canady Pond Road in a community south of Fayetteville, according to the news release. A soldier driving on the road saw the bag and thought there was a doll inside, Wright said on Facebook.

“Inside the bag was no doll,” Wright wrote. “Instead, it was a baby boy, not even 24 hours old, his umbilical cord still attached.”

At the time, then-Sheriff Moose Butler pleaded to the parents to come forward, but no one did, the news release said. Officials wanted to give the baby a proper burial, and named him “Baby Michael” so he wasn’t buried without a name, Wright wrote.

“Detectives have never given up working on this homicide, and finally got a break in the case,” Wright wrote in the news release. “Baby Michael’s DNA was sent to Bode Technology, who specializes in forensic genealogy services, for comparison. The results gave a family line, and it was up to the detectives to narrow the suspect field.”

After being interviewed by detectives she was transported back and booked into the Cumberland County Detention Center, according to a news release.

No bond has been set, and she will appear in court Friday.