Four and a half years after the body of a one-day-old baby girl was found off the coast of Florida, the baby's mother, 29-year-old Arya Singh, was identified yesterday (Thursday) and arrested on suspicion of first-degree murder.
This, at the end of a lengthy investigation by the authorities using a genetic genealogy technique.
"Four years ago I stood in front of the cameras and asked for the public's support in trying to understand what happened and who the unidentified baby is," Steven Stribley, chief of the Special Investigations Unit in Palm Beach County, Florida, told the media.
"I am very happy to announce that today we have answers to all these questions."
On June 1, 2018, a firefighter sailing a boat in the Boynton Beach Bay area spotted a small body floating on the surface of the water.
The baby, who was nameless, was then called "Baby-June".
Immediately after that, the investigation began.
Authorities released sketches of what the baby might have looked like at birth, while investigators searched all birth records in Palm Beach and Broward counties.
Baby John, as the police in Florida published, 2018 (photo: official website, Palm Beach Sheriff)
According to Stribley, these actions did not lead to the baby's family.
He said that a reward of $10,000 was even offered for information leading to the arrest of the suspect in the act, but still, nothing was helpful.
"It seemed that we were on the road to a dead end," he added.
Recently, however, a genetic genealogy technique was used in the investigation, in which the sheriff's office uploaded the baby's DNA to a publicly available database and was able to identify a relative.
"We reconstructed the family tree and identified the relatives, and then we made the connection to our suspect today," said Julie Sikorski, who is in charge of the forensic biology unit at the office.
Investigators located the baby's father and confirmed it with a DNA test, said Detective Brittany Christophel of the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office.
The father told the investigators that he did have a girlfriend at the time who told him she was pregnant but, according to her, "took care of it."
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The location where Baby John was found, 2018 (photo: official website, Palm Beach Sheriff)
"He didn't know anything about the baby," Christophel said.
"He thought she might have had a miscarriage," he added.
The investigators obtained a "hidden DNA sample" from the father's ex-girlfriend, which he said was "a piece of trash he threw away" - and with it they confirmed that Singh was indeed the baby's mother.
Christophel said that they will question the mother, as well as several friends and family members, and determined that no one else knew about the incident, and that Singh "was solely responsible for the baby ending up in the bay in Winton Beach."
The detective added that "when the baby arrived in the bay, she was already dead."
Singh was taken into custody yesterday and will likely be charged with first degree murder, according to Dave Aronberg, the Palm Beach County state's attorney.
Singh reportedly told investigators she didn't know she was pregnant until she gave birth on May 30, 2018, and wasn't sure if the baby was alive or dead.
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