Death Of 2-Week-Old Baby Found Off Florida Coast Ruled A Homicide
The death of a newborn girl rocked the Florida coast after she was discovered floating in the Boynton Beach inlet on the Atlantic Ocean side by an off-duty firefighter back in June 2018, according to WFLA. Today, in a news conference given by the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, per WPTV, the case of the newborn girl was ruled a homicide.
The medical examiner has ruled the death of the 2-week-old girl, dubbed “Baby June,” a homicide, but further details are unknown at this time. Initial investigation by the Special Victims Unit showed no marks on the baby, except a heel-prick in the foot. The umbilical cord had been cut and clipped in a professional manner, leading investigators to believe the baby girl had been born in a hospital or some other medical facility.
An all-out, multi-department effort was launched in order to find out the identity of Baby June. All live births in Palm Beach and Broward Counties in the date range the police believe Baby June was born have been checked out. Roughly 700 babies were checked on visually. The massive effort did not lead to any new information.
Though it is not certain, police believe the infant girl may have come from the Broward County area after the Coast Guard did a reverse drift and determined the tide indicated Broward County.
The police are pleading with the public for help in finding out who Baby June is and what happened. There have been a total of 16 tips thus far, which the sheriff’s office stated in the news conference is “not very much for this case.” None of the tips called in so far have led anywhere.
Today, we will have a press conference at 11 a.m. with updated information on the #BabyJune case. Join us as we stream LIVE on Periscope and Facebook. https://t.co/lP1JsR8zo8 pic.twitter.com/dQZE1dROyi
— PBSO (@PBCountySheriff) November 26, 2018
“We need to know who the parents are,” said Capt. Steven Strivelli of the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, “and any relatives. Some hospital, somewhere, has evidence of this child being born.”
The investigation so far has used Parabon Snapshot DNA testing, which revealed the baby girl is 50 percent Central Asian and 50 percent African. According to Parabon, this is an “unusual split” and is usually found in Barbados, Jamaica, and Trinidad. Police have reached out to the Bahamas for help, but there were no reports of anything suspicious.
“We hate seeing this and we want to get to the bottom of what happened,” said Strivelli. “We’re not going to stop here. This case is not going to close until we get completion.”
Strivelli further assured the baby’s DNA is in the database and will be constantly run. Meanwhile, the police are asking anyone with information to contact the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office at 561-688-4155 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-458-TIPS. There is a $10,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest.
