Author Topic: BABY JOHN DOE: WM, Infant, found in Iowa City landfill - 21 December 1992  (Read 134 times)

Akoya

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Unidentified Baby John Doe
Homicide
Unidentified Baby John Doe
Newborn
Found in Iowa City Landfill
Iowa City, IA
Johnson County
December 21, 1992

Case Summary by Jody Ewing
Four days before Christmas in 1992, a worker from a Kalona, Iowa sanitation firm found a naked, newborn baby boy’s body in a pile of trash at the Iowa City Landfill west of Iowa City.

The caucasian infant — identified by the medical examiner as Baby John Doe — weighed 9 pounds and 3 ounces.

The landfill worker discovered the body on a Monday over the noon hour.

Despite below freezing temperatures early in the day, the baby’s body was not frozen. Pathologists told police the weather had been cold and cloudy enough to preserve the infant’s body for a longer period of time.

The baby, police said, could have been picked up on a route used by Iowa City Transfer & Storage Co. or by a private contractor who used a van to collect refuse.

Two other dump trucks used the landfill during the noon hour the day the boy was found. A vehicle from Goodwill Industries of Southeast Iowa had visited the landfill before noon to dump some mattresses, though Iowa City Police Chief R.J. Winkelhake said landfill operators believed the baby arrived after the Goodwill truck had already gone.

Investigators concentrated on the areas where trash had been picked up that Monday, which included sections of southern Iowa City, Coralville apartment complexes and the smaller towns of Lone Tree and Hills. They conducted numerous door-to-door and face-to-face interviews, and also spoke to those with knowledge about commercial dumpsters in Hills and Lone Tree.