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Baby identified 3 decades after her body was found on Mississippi highway
Authorities in southern Mississippi have identified the remains of an infant whose death remained a mystery for more than three decades, and investigators say a woman who wrote a letter saying she was the baby’s mother was found dead in her home last week.
A newborn at the time of her death, the girl became known to law enforcement and the community as “Mary Josephine” because a local funeral home gave her that name while preparing for the burial. Her body was discovered along the side of an interstate highway in Gulfport on Dec. 21, 1993, and a subsequent autopsy found she died from “blood loss and exposure,” according to the Harrison County Sheriff’s Office.
Investigators said the baby’s umbilical cord was still attached and determined she had likely been born the previous day, said Othram, Inc., the laboratory that performed the testing that eventually identified her. The manner of death was ruled a homicide by the medical examiner in 1993. Authorities launched a homicide investigation at the time but were unable to locate any of the baby’s family members.
Finally, in December 2023, a judge granted a request from investigators and the district attorney in Harrison County to exhume the baby’s body in hopes of identifying her by DNA analysis, which had advanced considerably since her death 30 years earlier.
A DNA sample was collected and sent to Othram’s laboratory in Houston for testing. Othram said it used the sample to build a complete DNA profile for the infant and parsed a database to connect the profile to potential family members.
Honored that Othram could assist the Mississippi Office of the State Medical Examiner and Harrison County Sheriff’s Office in identifying a 1993 Baby Doe.#dnasolveshttps://t.co/TrXMeKIPBH
— Othram Inc. (@OthramTech) October 16, 2024
Harrison County investigators received the results of those tests last week, including a forensic genetic genealogy assessment that flagged possible relatives of the newborn. Investigators conducted interviews based on the lab’s results and identified a woman who they believed could be Mary Josephine’s mother. On Oct. 10, they obtained a search warrant on the woman with the intention to conduct a DNA comparison and validate her possible relationship to the baby.
The day after investigators obtained the warrant, they tried to contact the woman who they thought might be the infant’s mother at her home in Gautier, which is about 40 miles east of Gulfport. They ultimately entered the woman’s home and found her dead by suicide.
Investigators also found a letter at the woman’s home, which she had written. In it, the woman claimed to be the mother of Mary Josephine, according to the Harrison County sheriff.
There were no injuries after a Southwest flight carrying passengers was struck by gunfire on the tarmac of Dallas Love Field Friday night, authorities said.
Southwest Airlines Flight 2494 was preparing for departure to Indianapolis when “a bullet apparently struck the right side of the aircraft under the flight deck,” a Southwest spokesperson told CBS News in a statement.
The airline said no one was hurt. A spokesperson for Dallas Love Field said in an email that the aircraft returned to its gate after sustaining damage from a “security incident” and the passengers deplaned. The runway was also temporarily closed, but has since reopened.
Dallas police confirmed the incident, saying that officers responded to reports of gunfire at 9:48 p.m. local time, arriving to find that the aircraft had been struck.
No further details were provided on the circumstances of the incident or what was the potential source of the gunfire. It’s unclear how many people were aboard the jet at the time, or how much damage the aircraft sustained.
In its own statement provided to CBS News, the Federal Aviation Administration said that the plane “was reportedly struck by gunfire near the cockpit.”
Dallas police are leading the investigation into the incident.
Earlier this week, gunfire amid ongoing gang violence struck three planes that were either landing or departing Haiti’s capital of Port-au-Prince. The shootings prompted the FAA to issue a 30-day ban on U.S. airlines flying to Haiti.
Social media star Jake Paul defeated boxing legend Mike Tyson in a highly anticipated fight with an age difference of over three decades between the two contenders. The Friday night win for the YouTuber-turned-pro-boxer was streamed on Netflix from the home of the Dallas Cowboys in Texas.
Paul defeated Tyson by an unanimous decision after the two fighters went eight full rounds.
Fight night for the 58-year-old Tyson and 27-year-old Paul came following doubts over whether it would happen at all. The fight was originally scheduled for July, but was postponed after the former heavyweight champion experienced an ulcer flare-up on a plane in May.
A different kind of flare-up happened during the official weigh-in Thursday with Tyson slapping Paul in the face. Tyson later told the New York Post that Paul had stepped on his toe when the two were toe to toe onstage.
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What is Jake Paul’s fight record?
With the win, Paul’s record improved to 11-1.
Was Jake Paul predicted to win?
Oddsmakers had Paul as the slight favorite to win. Former heavyweight champ Anthony Joshua also went with Paul.
How much prize money does Jake Paul win?
Paul was expected to earn about $40 million from the fight, according to DraftKings Network and other online sources.
Promoters didn’t reveal the payouts ahead of the bout. Paul is a co-founder of Most Valuable Promotions, which produced the fight.
Does Mike Tyson still get paid?
Tyson was expected to take home around $20 million for the fight, according to DraftKings and other online reports.
Tyson entered professional boxing in 1985 and became the youngest heavyweight champion in history a year later. After serving time for a rape conviction in the 1990s, Tyson won the World Boxing Council and World Boxing Association titles.
He retired from boxing in 2005 and was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2011. He last fought in a 2020 exhibition match against former four-division world champ Roy Jones Jr.
“He like put on another 20 pounds from when I fought him, so he’s more bigger and he’s more dangerous because more size, more power, so it’s going to be a tough one for Jake to climb,” Jones told CBS News ahead of the fight.
Anne Marie Lee and
contributed to this report.
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