Stearns County Sheriff’s Department Releases New Information in an Unidentified Human Remains Investigation from 1980

(KNSI) — The Stearns County Sheriff’s Department says it has learned the identity of the parents of a baby whose remains were found in a ditch outside St. Cloud in 1980.

According to a press release sent Thursday afternoon, April 3rd, 1980, officers responded to a report of a deceased infant on what is now 250th Street, west of County Road 136, in St. Augusta. Sheriff Charlie Grafft and his team found the infant, later named Baby Jane Doe, approximately five feet from the roadway. An autopsy conducted the next day by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office determined the child was born alive at full-term with no obvious cause of death. Baby Doe was buried in Calvary Cemetery in St. Cloud on April 7th, 1980, and the investigation continued.

In 2018, her remains were exhumed so investigators could get her DNA profile, and she was reburied, but no profile was obtained. In 2019, items collected from the original scene, including a Pepsi can, a Merit cigarette pack, a Pfeiffer beer can, and an Old Milwaukee beer can, were re-examined but yielded no new evidence.

In 2020, histology blocks from the original autopsy were examined, and a DNA profile was obtained from Baby Doe’s spleen. The sheriff’s office contacted Parabon NanoLabs for assistance in identifying the child’s parents. In 2021, information was provided to investigators that led to the identification of the baby’s grandparents and, subsequently, her potential mother. Histology blocks collected by the medical examiner during the previous autopsy of a woman. A DNA profile from the potential mother’s heart showed a high likelihood of a mother-daughter relationship.

In 2024, Parabon NanoLabs helped identify potential fathers and one of the three possible candidates consented to DNA testing. The comparison showed an extremely high likelihood of a biological parent relationship. Interviews with the identified father in May and June 2024 revealed he was cooperative but denied knowledge of Baby Doe. The comparison results indicated the genetics from the baby are 670 million times more likely to occur in a biological child for the adult female and adult male than in someone unrelated.

Despite identifying the parents, the sheriff’s office could not establish beyond a reasonable doubt that a crime had been committed related to the child’s death, partly due to the mother’s death, preventing further interviews. Consequently, the case has been closed.

The resolution of this decades-long case was a collaborative effort involving the Stearns County Sheriff’s Office Criminal Investigative Division, the BCA Forensic Lab, and advancements in DNA science.

The sheriff’s office is preparing the investigative file for release, with necessary redactions, and will provide updates once the file is ready.

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