VALLEY CITY, N.D. (AP) - The remains of a newborn girl have been returned to a grave in Valley City a year after they were exhumed in a decades-old cold case.
The remains were buried again Tuesday at Hillside Cemetery in a ceremony attended by Barnes County and Valley City officials.
The body of the infant, later called Baby Rebecca, was found in the underbrush near the Valley City State University campus on April 15, 1981. Investigators revealed the newborn child died from asphyxia shortly after she was born.
At Tuesday’s ceremony, Valley City Police Commissioner Mike Bishop wondered out loud about the child’s destiny.
“If this little girl had been allowed to live, what would she have become,” Bishop said.
In July 2019, Valley City police exhumed the remains and sent them to a lab at the University of North Texas for DNA testing to determine her parental origins. The search for her parents continues, KQDJ reports.
Valley City Police Chief Phil Hatcher said it’s hoped that the new DNA information obtained will help bring closure and justice to this unsolved case.
Former Valley City Police Chief Dean Ross was a sergeant at the time of the original investigation. He thanked everyone for not giving up on the case. He remains hopeful that someone will come forward to tell the truth about the circumstances surrounding the death of Baby Rebecca.
“Maybe there’s a conscience out there somewhere too. You know, that someone might say 40 years later that maybe I did something wrong back then and it’s been bothering me for 40 years. That’s what I always hoped, that someone would come forward,” Ross said.
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