A baby’s murder case went cold in 1993. Now MS Coast officials want to exhume the body
The Harrison County Sheriff’s Office is reopening its investigation into the killing of an unidentified infant nicknamed Mary Josephine after her body was discovered on the side of a road in December 1993.
To help identify the infant and possible relatives, Harrison County prosecuting attorney, Jasmine Magee, filed a petition in Circuit Court asking a judge to order the exhumation of the baby’s remains from her final resting place at Floral Hills Memorial Gardens on Carl Leggett Road in Gulfport.
Judge Christopher Schmidt has not ruled on the request.
If approved, the state medical examiner’s office, in conjunction with Harrison County Coroner Brian Switzer, will oversee the disinterment to collect a DNA sample before re-internment.
“We are still in the early stages of the investigation,” Harrison County Sheriff Troy Peterson said. “It’s a really old investigation, so we are going back to basics to start from the beginning.”
Since Dec. 30, 1993, authorities have been unable to identify the newborn baby or who tossed her in grass along Intestate 10 near Lorraine Road.
Two stranded motorists discovered the newborn with her umbilical cord still attached about one or two car lengths from the highway, authorities said, indicating the baby had been tossed or thrown.
After her body was found, then state medical examiner Paul McGarry did an autopsy on the infant and determined she was born healthy but likely died of blood loss, exposure and perinatal hypoxia, or a lack of oxygen caused by possible compression of the umbilical cord.
The umbilical cord had a jagged end, his report said, indicating it had been ripped off.
The baby was white, 21 inches long, and 7 pounds and eight ounces with brown hair.
The medical examiner determined the baby was born alive based on the expansion of her right lung and a few patches of expansion in the left lung.
The manner of death was by homicide.
Officials estimate she was born on Dec. 20, 1993.
After the discovery, authorities tried unsuccessfully to identify who tossed the baby onto the grass along the westbound lane of the highway about one mile west of Lorraine Road. Or why.
At the time, authorities appealed to the public for information, but the case remained unsolved.
DNA testing has advanced since 1993 to the point that officials are more likely to identify a homicide victim or relatives using companies in DNA analysis.
Companies like Orthram Labs in Woodlands, Texas, have been used various times in Mississippi to help law enforcement officials in their efforts to solve cold cases.
Orthram specializes in identifying victims and perpetrators by using DNA evidence, according to the company’s leaders. Ortrham analysts are able to create a DNA profile that genetic genealogists use to place the baby in a family tree to help identify possible relatives.
Orthram genealogists worked with the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department on multiple cold cases.
In June 2021, Jackson County investigators and Orthram worked together to identify Kimberly Ann Funck, born in Sharon, Pennsylvania on Feb. 7, 1969. Her skeletal remains had been found in a swampy area of Ward Bayou in February 1991. Her death was ruled a homicide and remains under investigation.
Three months later, in September 2021, the Sheriff’s Department and Orthram used the same tools to identify skeletal remains known as “Escatawpa Jane Doe.” The woman’s name was Clara Birdlong, and she was believed to be a victim of serial killer Samuel Little. Little confessed to over 90 murders through the southeast before he died at age 80 in a California prison cell. Birdsong’s remains had been discovered in December 1977.
