Happy Birthday, baby boy.

You would be 29 years old this week if someone hadn’t thrown you in household garbage that ended up at the now-closed West Side Landfill in Larksville.

On Aug. 6, 1980, a bulldozer operator at the landfill was spreading garbage when he saw what he thought was a doll in the mounds of trash. He stopped the bulldozer and took a closer look. What he thought was a doll turned out to be the body of a male infant.

An autopsy by Luzerne County Coroner Dr. George Hudock, since deceased, determined the infant was alive for 24 to 72 hours after birth and died due to “acts of omission,” meaning the baby didn’t receive the necessary care to sustain life.

The infant was buried in a remote section of St. Anthony of Padua Cemetery in Courtdale. A flat grave marker simply says, “Baby Boy Aug. 1980.” No name, no date of birth, no date of death.

I’ve written about the infant this time every August for the past eight years, hoping someone will come forward -- not to confess to the infant’s homicide, but with a name. I visit the infant’s grave a few times a year, mostly finding overgrown grass and weeds, but sometimes finding mementos.

When I stopped yesterday morning in the light rain, the grave was spruced up and presentable. I knelt down, blessed myself and said a prayer for progress in the criminal investigation.

I have learned the state police don’t refer to old, unsolved homicides as cold cases. Each unsolved homicide case is reviewed at least once a year. There is hope.

Remains should be exhumed

A few weeks ago, I thought about the infant when I read an Associated Press story about the exhumation of an infant girl in Northumberland County. According to published reports, an infant girl was found dead along state Route 61 in 1983. The girl was wrapped in a trash bag. An autopsy revealed the infant girl was born alive and had been suffocated. State police exhumed the infant girl on July 13 so they could extract enough usable samples for use in mitochondrial DNA testing. The infant girl’s flat marker reads “Baby Girl Doe Aug. 4, 1983.” The actual date of the infant girl’s death is unknown.

The date on the stone is the day after she was buried in Odd Fellows Cemetery in Coal Township near Shamokin. There must have been a reason authorities in Northumberland County decided to exhume the infant girl a second time. The infant girl was exhumed in 1998, but testing on her remains was inconclusive.

The infant boy in St. Padua Cemetery has never been exhumed for DNA testing. It’s disappointing that hasn’t happened.

A few months before Dr. Hudock died on Oct. 2, 2005, he told me the infant boy could be exhumed to conduct mitochondrial DNA testing if a maternal relation comes forward. Even if a maternal relation doesn’t come forward, I believe the chances would be greater to identify and, perhaps, solve this unsolved case if the infant boy is exhumed to perform mitochondrial DNA testing.

There is a national DNA database law enforcement agencies use to identify suspects of crime. Here’s a challenge to state police investigators and the Luzerne County District Attorney’s Office: Take a few days to thoroughly review the infant boy’s case, get a court order to exhume the body for DNA testing, and pray for a match.

The infant boy deserves for this to be the last August for his identity to be unknown.

About the Author

Ed Lewis covers police news for the Times Leader. Reach him at elewis@timesleader.com.

Ed Lewis covers police for The Times Leader. A graduate of Hanover Area, he earned a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from King’s College where he also minored in political science. He interned for Congressman Paul E. Kanjorski in Washington, D.C., while in college, and formerly was an assignment editor and managing editor before finding his niche covering the very busy police beat. His hobbies include lifting weights, kickboxing, reading, carpentry, gardening, model trains and sports, especially football.

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