Mystery surrounds baby found in ocean
Other than her approximate age, everything remains a mystery about the infant girl whose body was found floating in the ocean near the Boynton Beach Inlet on Friday afternoon.
The baby’s age is estimated at 2 weeks old, at the most, but it is unknown how long the she was in the water, how she got there or how she died. She had no identifying marks. With more questions than answers, the Palm Beach County Sheriff ’s Office on Monday issued a public plea for clues to help identify the newborn or her parents.
“It’s gut-wrenching, and we hate seeing it and we really desperately want to get to the bottom of what happened,” said Capt. Steven Strivelli, of the sheriff ’s special victims unit. “At this point we’re still in the theory phase. We don’t know what really happened.”
At first glimpse, the naked infant looked like a doll to the off-duty Boynton Beach firefighter who found her in the water while out boating, according to published reports. He discovered her about 75 to 100 feet from shore, about a half-mile north of the inlet.
The state Department of
Children and Families has opened a childdeath investigation.
“The discovery of this little girl is awful,” the agency’s statement said. “At this time, very few details are known other than the manner in which she was found.”
Detectives on Monday released an artist’s rendering of what the baby might have looked like at birth. She had black hair and dark skin and appeared to be of mixed race, Strivelli said, but investigators had not yet figured out her race or ethnicity.
Monday’s news conference resulted in more questions asked than answered. Among them:
Was the baby dead when it was placed in the water or did it drown? “That, we don’t know. The medical examiner is still investigating.”
Was the child placed in the water in that area or did she drift or float there from somewhere else? “We have some thoughts but we can’t release and we don’t know all of the details yet. We’re still waiting for some information to come back from the medical examiner and that will really aid us in our investigation.”
Does it look like the baby was dumped off a boat or thrown from shore or somebody waded in? “That’s all part of the investigation that I can’t discuss.”
Could the baby have fallen off or been thrown from a boat migrating from another country? “We don’t know at this point and we’re still investigating. We’re looking for information, because a big piece of what we need right now is the parents.”
Did the baby appear to be taken care of in the last two weeks? “I can’t answer … but I do know the child was a healthy size.”
Strivelli would not say whether the infant showed any signs of abuse or whether it appeared she had been born at a hospital.
Investigators urge anyone who with any information about the baby to contact Detective Cliff Hamilton at 561-488-4155 or hamiltonc@pbso.org.