Police: Link Between Dead Baby in Dumpster, Mom Who 'Can't Recall' Newborn's Whereabouts?

Detectives are investigating a possible link between Wednesday’s discovery of a dead newborn baby among items being sorted at a Macomb County recycling center and the courthouse confession of an Okemos woman that she “can’t recall” where she left her newborn son last month.

Roseville Police Chief James Berlin said the full-term white baby boy bundled in cloth was discovered in by workers at a recycling center on Groesbeck Wednesday, WDIV-TV reports. Early indications are that the baby was three days old when he died. There were no visible signs of trauma.

The Detroit Free Press reports workers were sorting recyclables when the bundle came done the line about 11 p.m. Wednesday. The workers grabbed it, opened it and “to everyone’s shock,” found the dead baby, Berlin said. The items being sorted by the workers had been stored in a Dumpster outside the facility.

Related:

• Prosecutor: Mom Can’t Remember Where She Left Newborn

Berlin declined to comment on evidence collected at the scene, but said it could be helpful in the investigation of what happened to Melissa Mitin’s newborn son last December. He said detectives had been searching recyclable materials for evidence both before and after the baby was found.

Mitin’s bond on a murder charge in connection with the December 2013 of a daughter – who she’s accused of killing by placing her facedown in a trash container shortly after the infant’s birth – was revoked by an Ingham County family court judge Wednesday after she said she didn’t remember where she’d left the baby boy she had given birth to about a month prior.

Berlin said it’s not uncommon to find non-recyclable items in the Dumpsters, but said workers have never found anything “this heinous.”

He pointed out that Michigan’s safe-haven law provides an alternative to abandonment and allows parents to surrender newborns within 72 hours of birth at a hospital, police or fire station, or by calling 911.

“You can do anything beyond throwing (the baby) into a Dumpster,” he said.

Melissa Mitin is accused of murder charges in the death of an infant in December 2013. Her bond was revoked this week after she admitted she “can’t recall” the whereabouts of another baby born about a month ago. (Courtesy photo)