The 1992 death of "Baby Doe" went cold, but not before an autopsy determined the baby was likely born three weeks premature and was smothered minutes after she was born, authorities said.
A woman and her ex-husband were arrested last week in connection with a premature baby’s body found in a garbage bag dumped behind a local pizza shop more than 30 years ago.
A local farmer had been scavenging the trash for food to feed his animals on April 15, 1992 when he discovered one of the trash bags he brought home contained a baby wrapped in a towel, along with other items of trash, authorities said.
Inga Carriere, 50, and Andrew Carriere, 50, both of whom live in Louisiana, were arrested for first-degree murder in connection with the cold case infant death, according to Louisiana State Police. They would have been 19 years old at the time of the infant's death.
The pair are being held without bond at the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center.
Advancements in DNA technology, along with renewed interest in the case by investigators, led authorities to identifying the pair as the parents, according to authorities.
“It affected this community so much,” Detective Rhonda Johnson, of the Picayune Police Department in Mississippi, said of the original discovery, according to NOLA.com. “It was a really sad situation.
She reopened the 1992 cold case in 2021 after coming across a box in the department’s evidence room marked “Baby Doe,” NOLA.com reported.
Though the Picayune Police Department described the infant as “a fully developed newborn female,” an autopsy conducted at the time revealed the baby was born approximately three weeks premature, and lived only a few minutes before being smothered, authorities said.
The cause of death was determined to be perinatal asphyxia, and the case was classified as a homicide, WSAZ reported.
But Inga Carriere's attorney said she is innocent, and that the circumstances surrounding the baby’s death, along with the evidence collected at the time of the grim discovery, tell a different story.
"There is evidence to show that my client believed the child was stillborn, which would not be newborn or baby or infant, and would not be a crime either," Paul Flemming, a public defender representing Inga Carriere on the case, told WESH. "What we have determined so far would tend to exonerate our client. We don't think she had any guilty knowledge of this incident that happened more than 30 years ago."
Inside Edition Digital has reached out to Andrew Carriere's attorneys for comment.
