25 May 2023
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (WDAF) — Detectives used DNA and believe they’ve identified the mother of an infant after someone found the baby’s body in a wooded area near East 41st and Pittman Road earlier this month.
Investigators applied for a warrant to search the lot where they located the baby’s body on May 13.
They also asked for a warrant to require the owners of an apartment complex to hand over surveillance video. Police believe the child may have died inside the building, according to court documents.
Two days after officers began investigating the infant’s death, a woman contacted police, according to the search warrant application. She said the mother of her 6-month-old granddaughter told the family that the baby died. The woman said the baby’s mother would not provide them with information about the child’s death or funeral arrangements.
Detectives spoke to a sibling of the suspected mother, as well as several other people who know her. They all told investigators that the woman said her 6-month-old baby had died.
Detectives compared DNA from the baby’s remains to the DNA of the child’s suspected mother. Tests show the woman is likely the baby’s mother, according to the warrant application.
It also shows the woman’s sibling and a friend went to her apartment on April 28. They said the apartment “smelled horrific” and there were trash bags left near the front door.
The woman allegedly told her sibling that the 6-month-old baby was not at the apartment.
Based on the investigation, Kansas City police questioned the woman. The court paperwork shows she told officers she had two children, a 4-year-old son and a 2-year-old daughter, but denied having a third child.
The search warrant application shows she changed her story multiple times before telling officers her 6-month-old baby died.
She then provided multiple versions of what happened when her daughter passed away, according to the document. She first said she didn’t know how her daughter died. Then she told detectives her boyfriend was in the bedroom when the baby started choking and later found the baby’s body.
She then said her boyfriend strapped the baby’s body into a car seat and disappeared. He told her he was going to Arkansas but to tell people he took the baby to Texas.
Detectives asked the owners of the apartment complex where the woman lived with her children to give them access to surveillance video but said the owners denied the request, so officers applied for a search warrant.
The medical examiner has not released how the baby died.
No one is charged in the baby’s death yet, so WDAF-TV isn’t identifying anyone listed in the search warrants pending formal charges.
“It’s sad because it was a 6-month-old child, a beautiful child,” said Debbie Hendrix who lives at the same complex the family did.
Hendrix said she had interacted with the child and her mother. She said it was been clear to neighbors that something was going on.
“The police was here. We had two crime scene vans; they all have been periodically have been coming down here,” she said.