A reminder that there are generally no statutes of limitation for crimes in which you voluntarily kill someone:
The mother of a newborn girl whose body was found in a New Jersey park on Christmas Eve nearly 40 years ago has been identified and is now charged in the death, authorities announced Thursday.
The infant, dubbed "Baby Mary" by a police chaplain, was found by two young boys in a secluded park in Mendham Township in 1984, Morris County Prosecutor Robert Carrol said. The child's umbilical cord was still attached when she was found, and she was wrapped inside a towel inside of a plastic bag. She was alive when she was abandoned, Carrol said.
Needless to say, the poor child was not alive when she was discovered. And for roughly forty years nobody knew who did it.
The child's mother was 17 at the time and is now pushing 60. Because she was underage when the crime occurred, and she was "charged as a juvenile with manslaughter" in the death.
She "is not in custody but is 'being monitored'," according to authorities.
The breakthrough in the case came a few years ago when police made "a DNA match between the infant and the father," the latter of whom died in 2009.
Mendham Township Police Chief Ross Johnson noted that, every Christmas Eve for more than three decades, members of the town have visited the baby's grave to pay their respects.
"Today," Johnson said, "we are finally able to bring closure to this case and the community that has supported her."
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