COLUMBIA, S.C. — When a dead baby was found abandoned in a box in a vacant South Carolina field 29 years ago, every single detective on Greenville’s force poured themselves into the case.
There were solid leads — the vacuum cleaner box where the girl was found was traced back to a couple living nearby — but never enough to definitively identify the parents or charge anyone, Greenville Police Chief Ken Miller said.
But in November, DNA submitted to genealogy sites found a likely match to the baby’s father. Greenville detectives questioned him and he pointed them to his girlfriend at the time, Miller said.
Brook Graham, 53, was arrested Wednesday and charged with homicide by child abuse in the baby’s death. The charge carries a possible life sentence.
Detectives called the 6.5-pound (3-kilogram) girl Julie Valentine. She was born breathing in February 1990, but not in a hospital. The girl was found with her umbilical cord and placenta still attached wrapped in newspaper and bedding inside a vacuum cleaner box along with other trash, including an old sofa, Miller said at a news conference Thursday.
The box matched the model of vacuum cleaner Graham and the probable father had bought before the baby was abandoned, according to the arrest warrant.
“There’s a field. It’s undeveloped. There is a pile of debris. It doesn’t stand out,” said Miller, who thinks the baby died shortly after she was abandoned. The girl wasn’t found for three days.
The man who found her on Feb. 13, 1990, was picking flowers for his wife for Valentine’s Day, Miller said. The holiday combined with the name of the wife of one of the detectives who worked tirelessly on the case gave the baby her name, the chief said.
nationalpost.com
