Author Topic: BABY JANE DOE: F, newborn, found in Frenchville, ME gravel pit - 7 December 1985 *ARREST*  (Read 194 times)

Akoya

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 8173
    • View Profile
http://bangordailynews.com/2014/03/...-doe-still-haunts-maine-couple-investigators/

After nearly three decades, the case of Baby Jane Doe still haunts Maine couple, investigators

By Julia Bayly and Jen Lynds, BDN Staff
Posted March 21, 2014, at 3:43 p.m.
Last modified March 22, 2014, at 4:58 p.m.

FRENCHVILLE, Maine — Although a little over 28 years have passed and retired Maine State Police Maj. Charles Love has long since put away his badge and gun, he can still remember the sights and sounds on that December morning after the child he would know only as Baby Jane Doe was born and subsequently abandoned in a Frenchville gravel pit.

Baby Jane Doe has been at the center of a cold case ever since a dog named Paca first discovered the newborn and carried her back to the home of its owners, Armand and Lorraine Pelletier, less than a quarter mile away.

“It was so cold, just very, very cold,” Love recalled from his home in Winthrop recently. “I was not the first officer on the scene, but I was one of the earliest. I was walking the scene, trying to gather information. It was so quiet in that gravel pit, and it appeared that a vehicle had driven in, as the tracks were very clear in the snow. Right near them were plainly a set of dog tracks. I turned and followed those paw prints right back to the house, where it had dropped the baby right by the door.”

Three decades and countless hours of investigation later, the case still has more questions than answers.




Who was the mother? What circumstances led her to that gravel pit to deliver — and then abandon — her own baby on Dec. 7, 1985?

Why did no one ever come forward with information on a woman who had been pregnant and then suddenly childless?

Where did the mother go after the birth, and how did she avoid being seen?

A frozen little baby
“In this case and like in so many old cases, there are people who are aware and want to see the truth come out,” Sgt. Darren Crane with the Maine State Police major crimes unit, said recently. “Every once in awhile a phone call or other information comes in, and we work it.”

Crane is now the lead investigator on the case.




At the time, then Maine State Police Detective Arnold Gahagan was the lead investigator. Now retired, Gahagan declined to comment for this story, given the open status of the cold case.

At some point in the early morning hours of Saturday, Dec. 7, 1985, a woman delivered a full-term baby girl on a gravel pit access road near the intersection of U.S. Route 1 and Pelletier Avenue in Frenchville and then drove — or was driven — away, leaving the infant behind as temperatures dipped well below zero.

That’s where Paca, a Siberian Husky belonging to the Pelletiers, became the catalyst for the investigation that followed.

At the time, the Pelletiers lived on what was called Bouchard Road, roughly 700 feet from the access road.

“This is something you don’t forget,” Armand Pelletier said during a recent interview from the couple’s home in Bangor.

“I remember it like it was yesterday,” Lorraine Pelletier said.

Armand Pelletier recalled how that morning he had let the family dog out and, not long after, Paca was back at the sliding glass door, trying to get their attention.

“She kept pounding at the door’s window to get back in,” Armand Pelletier said. “She kept pounding, and after awhile, I went to go look, and I could not believe what I saw. I saw what looked like a little rag doll, but then we saw it was a frozen little baby.”

Lorraine Pelletier remembers “a cute little girl with reddish blond hair” that they were later told weighed 6 pounds, 8 ounces.

“It was 30 below [zero] that night,” Lorraine Pelletier said. “What [officials] told us was she could not have lived more than 30 minutes.”

The Pelletiers believe the cries of the infant or its scent led Paca right to her.

“Paca carried her so carefully by her head right to our back steps,” Lorraine Pelletier said.

Copies of the state medical examiner’s report were not immediately available, and the current whereabouts of Baby Jane Doe’s body could not be determined. Authorities cited the open investigation and noted that any files associated with the case were not easily accessible due to the amount of time that has passed since the incident.

In 1985, investigators told the Pelletiers that any wounds caused by Paca in no way contributed to the baby’s death.

“There were some wounds in her head, but they were completely superficial,” Aroostook County Sheriff James Madore said on a recent visit to the scene. “The dog did nothing to hurt that little baby.”