DNA has helped crack a four-year-old cold case by leading authorities to the mother of an unidentified newborn, nicknamed “Baby June,” discovered floating off the Florida coast. Now they’ve charged the mom with murder.
Who killed “Baby June?” Case went cold for 4 years
On June 1, 2018, authorities found a newborn baby dead, floating in the ocean off the coast of Florida. Police said the infant was “discarded like a piece of trash.”
The newborn was first spotted by an off-duty firefighter, who first thought the child was a doll. After the body was recovered from the water, authorities said the newborn was believed to be less than a week old, Cleveland 19 reported. They nicknamed the infant “Baby June.”
Investigators in Florida search through the records of every child born in Palm Beach and Broward Counties, all to no avail. The investigation was finally turned over to the cold case squad.
For the next four years, efforts to locate the parents of the baby were unsuccessful, as investigators were unable to uncover any fruitful leads, even with the offer of a $10,000 reward, the Daily Mail reported.
But with the continual advancement in DNA technology, investigators finally caught a break in 2022.
“It was four years ago that I stood in front of these same cameras and asked for the public’s support in trying to figure out what happened and who this unidentified child was,” said Palm Beach County Special Investigations Unit Captain Steven Strivelli at a press conference in mid-December.
DNA identifies father, who leads them to mother
Investigators uploaded the newborn’s DNA onto a public database, FamilyTreeDNA, which led investigators to identify close relatives of the victim. They then used advanced DNA technology to find the likely father of the newborn, whom they confirmed.
When investigators interviewed the father, he told them he had an ex-girlfriend named Arya Singh at the time the baby was likely born. She had told him she was pregnant but had “taken care of it.”
“He knew nothing about this baby,” said Detective Brittany Christoffel of Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office. “He was thinking she perhaps had an abortion.”
Police arrest mother and charge her with murder
Investigators were able to get a covert DNA sample from Singh by snagging a piece of garbage she had discarded. From that DNA sample, authorities confirmed she was the mother of the newborn baby, the detective said.
Police said they learned that 48 hours before the baby was found in the water, Singh had been at the inlet on May 30, 2018. They also discovered the mother had searched for and read articles about the baby’s discovery. Despite those things, the detective said, “she’s never come forward in all this time.”
Singh told investigators she was unaware she was pregnant until she gave birth on May 30, 2018, and that she wasn’t sure if the baby was dead or alive at the time. The detective said the baby was already dead when it was placed in the water.
Detectives interviewed several family members and friends, and they say they have determined Singh was “solely responsible for the baby ending up in the Boynton Beach Inlet.”
Authorities arrested 29-year-old Arya Singh on December 15 and charged her with the first-degree murder of her baby daughter.
