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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.
Croatian authorities arrested an Austrian national on suspicion of trying to smuggle a corpse, after he was stopped at a border crossing with a dead woman riding in his car’s passenger seat, police said Tuesday.
The 65-year-old man was stopped at the Gunja border crossing with Bosnia in late November after presenting travel documents for himself and another passenger, police told AFP in a statement.
The officers then became suspicious after noticing the female passenger “was not conscious and was not communicating.”
Police called a coroner to the scene, who established that the passenger was dead.
Authorities said the 83-year-old woman had died in Bosnia, and the driver had tried to take her body to back Austria to “avoid formalities related to the transport of deceased,” the statement added.
Police did not elaborate on the relationship between the two, but local media has described the man as the deceased’s legal guardian.
Police said the case had been formally handed over to the country’s prosecutors.
Drivers in the U.S. have also been found with corpses in their vehicles for a variety of different reasons. Last year, a man in Texas was arrested after a man’s body was found inside his car nearly 40 miles away from where police there believe he was hit by the car.
In 2014, a Detroit-area man said he refused to stop and contact authorities after one of his passengers died during a drive to Michigan from Arizona because he feared being incarcerated if police investigated. Four years before that, police said a Southern California woman drove around for months with a homeless woman’s mummified body in her passenger seat.
CBS News
Rex Heuermann, alleged Long Island serial killer, due in court as prosecutors promise major development
RIVERHEAD, N.Y. – Accused Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann is due back in court on Long Island Tuesday morning, and prosecutors are promising a major development in the case.
The hearing is set to begin after 9:30 a.m. A press conference is expected at the Suffolk County DA’s office shortly after. We will bring that news conference to you live on CBS News New York.
The judge has previously indicated he wanted to set a trial date at today’s hearing.
Heuermann’s last court appearance was back in October.
Heuermann accused of killing 6 women, so far
Heuermann, 61, has pleaded not guilty to murder charges in the deaths of six women between 1993 and 2011. The remains of 11 people were discovered around Gilgo Beach during that period, and investigators believe Heuermann may be linked to other killings. The Suffolk County DA has said there could be future indictments.
Four of the victims had their bodies disposed of near Gilgo Beach. Two others were murdered as far back as 2003 and 1993. Each of them had been involved in sex work.
Prosecutors allege Heuermann is linked to the murders through DNA, burner phone data, a description of his truck, internet searches and what they call a blueprint for how to get away with murder.
Attorneys wrangle over DNA, volume of evidence
A key point of contention in the new DNA evidence is called SNP, which prosecutors say links the hairs of victims to Heuermann. The defense has called an outside lab’s methods of genetic testing unproven and “magic.”
Another hurdle for prosecutors is the sheer volume of evidence. The DA says they’re struggling to keep up with the costs of processing the 120 terabytes of data and 400 electronic devices seized.
Heuermann’s attorney says his client is looking forward to his day in court and will be pursuing a change of venue, claiming the jury pool in Suffolk has been “poisoned.”
Heuermann remains in isolation in jail.
CBS News
Osiel Cárdenas Guillén — notorious drug lord nicknamed “Friend Killer” — returned to Mexico after U.S. prison sentence
Notorious drug lord Osiel Cárdenas Guillén has been returned to Mexico after serving a U.S. sentence and was quickly re-arrested and sent to a maximum security prison to face Mexican charges.
There had been nervousness about the impending return of Cárdenas Guillén, who once led the feared Gulf cartel in northeastern Mexico before he was arrested and extradited to the United States in 2007.
The U.S. Homeland Security Department confirmed in its social media accounts Monday that Cárdenas Guillén had been returned after serving 14 years in U.S. custody, most of his 25-year U.S. prison sentence. He is a Mexican citizen, so presumably he was deported.
“The successful removal of Osiel Cardenas, a notorious international fugitive, underscores our unwavering commitment to public safety and justice,” said Enforcement and Removal Operations Chicago Field Office Director Samuel Olson in a statement.
A Mexican federal official who was not authorized to be quoted by name said Cárdenas Guillén had immediately been taken into custody in Mexico on drug, organized crime and money-laundering charges.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement/Handout via REUTERS
The official said Cárdenas Guillén was being held at the country’s top maximum-security Altiplano prison just west of Mexico City.
Homeland Security Investigations posted photos of a paunchy, balding, bespectacled Cárdenas Guillén being escorted by two officers in helmets and flak vests, and the being walked over a border bridge.
The image contrasts with the drug lord’s fearsome reputation for violence in Mexico.
Nicknamed “El Mata Amigos” (“Friend Killer”), he recruited former Mexican special forces soldiers to form his personal guard. The former head of the Gulf cartel was known for his brutality. He created the most bloodthirsty gang of hitmen Mexico has ever known, the Zetas, which routinely slaughtered migrants and innocent people.
The 57-year-old native of the border city of Matamoros, Mexico, moved tons of cocaine and made millions of dollars through the Gulf cartel, based in the border cities of Reynosa and Matamoros.
After his arrest in the northeast border state of Tamaulipas, he was extradited in 2007 to the United States, where he was sentenced in 2010 to 25 years in prison and ordered to pay $50 million.
At that time, the Justice Department alleged that Cardenas Guillen threatened to kill a Texas sheriff’s deputy who was working as an undercover ICE agent because he refused to deliver almost 1,000 kilograms of marijuana.
