Mother of baby found at riverside was never discovered
WHEN the small body of a newborn baby was found dumped on the side of the River Taff, a major police operation was launched.
Hundreds of women in the Grangetown area of Cardiff were questioned by specialist teams, hospitals were checked and house-to-house inquiries were conducted, but nearly half a century on the baby has never been identified and the killer has never been found.
The naked body of the newborn baby was discovered dumped near the river in September 1972.
The baby had been placed in a plastic bag and had a handkerchief around his neck.
A day later the Munich massacre happened at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, when eight
members of the Palestinian terrorist group Black September took nine members of the Israeli Olympic team hostage, killing them along with a West German police officer.
That story made the main headlines at the time, but the tragic case of the discovery of the baby’s body made the headlines in Cardiff.
The first mention of the crime appeared in the later editions of the South Wales Echo on the day of the devastating discovery – September 4.
It was originally reported that a group of boys walking alongside the river near the Clarence Bridge made the find.
Police immediately launched a search for the baby’s mother, especially as there were concerns that she may have needed hospital treatment.
It was later revealed that the tiny baby was just two days old and had been strangled before being left on the side of the River Taff.
Early on in the investigation a large number of police were involved, including a number of female police officers who had been drafted in to help interview a large number of women in the area.
This move was described by police at the time as bringing in some “feminine understanding” to the investigation.
Within days more than 200 women had been interviewed by police, but the baby’s mother had still not been identified.
Detective chief inspector Desmond Trigg, who was head of Canton CID at the time and in charge of the police investigation, said: “We have a lot more women to see.”
House-to-house inquiries were also carried out in the area near where the baby had been found, checks were made with doctors and hospitals and an incident room had been set up at the nearby docks police station.
More details were also revealed as the search continued, with officers describing how the baby boy weighed six-and-a-half pounds and had blue eyes.
An inquest into the baby’s death was held several days later and it was reported that a post-mortem examination had found he had been strangled within two days of his birth.
It was also revealed that the baby’s body had been dumped in bushes on waste ground on the riverbank at Taff Terrace.
The only person to give evidence at the inquest opening was DCI Trigg, who said that he was called to the riverbank on Monday, September 4 – the day the body was discovered.
He told the inquest opening: “There I saw the body of a male child lying on the bank. A handkerchief was tied around his neck.
“Police inquiries are being made with a view to tracking the mother of the child, identifying the child, and the person who left the child on the riverbank.”
During the course of the initial investigation officers worked on the theory that whoever left the body, may have planned to throw the body into the river but panicked.
The body was spotted by a passerby at 11am, but they thought it was a dead animal, and later a small boy playing in the area opened the bag and found the body.
Despite the massive police investigation, the hundreds of interviews that were carried out and the hospital checks that were made, the baby boy has never been identified and his mother has never been found.