Sadness, Confusion Engulfs Community After Abandoned Baby Found

Surprise and sadness.

Those were the overwhelming emotions that rippled through a quiet, blue-collar community on Christmas Eve, 1984.

Word had begun to spread throughout the community. It was a joyous time meant to be spent with family, but was tampered with shock and grief.

Two boys from the area had walked down Mt. Pleasant Road in Mendham Township, then a dirt road, to go fishing in a small river on an unseasonably warm day. They came across a bag, placed gently on a rock. Inside the bag was the unspeakable: the body of a day-old abandoned baby.

“It was a terrible situation,” said retired police chief Tom Costanza, who was a detective on the force at the time. “The community was somewhat similar back then, just not as developed. It was a little more blue-collar and a friendly area.”

Because of that setting, and because of the location of where the baby was left, Costanza still feels 30 years later the mother, or whomever left Baby Mary near that river, had to know the area.

The police department was all hands on deck to find the mother of the baby, knocking on doors and checking hospital records in Morris and Somerset counties. Visits to area high schools were in full force, police surmising a teen would know of a peer who may have hid a pregnancy.

But as the days went on the case became colder, with leads turning into dead ends quickly.

“It was exhausting and frustrating,” Costanza said. “We have this victim that has no history. We couldn’t develop any leads from that. We used newspapers to get the word out, said we were looking for residents who were recently pregnant and so on. But we just couldn’t develop anything.”

Thirty years later, the case has been reopened by the Mendham Township Police Department for one last push, with the help of the Morris County Prosecutor’s Office and New Jersey State Police.

Read more: Abandoned ‘Baby Mary’ Cold Case Opened 30 Years After Homicide Shocks Mendham Twp.

‘Too Scary’

When Baby Mary was found, her umbilical cord was still attached.

“She was a perfect, perfect child,” said Father Mike Drury, Mendham Township Police Department’s chaplain and then-St. Joseph’s associate pastor. Drury arrived on the scene and blessed the body, naming her Baby Mary in honor of Christmas Even.

The situation, Drury said, was “too scary. Someone was fearful to have a child. All she had to do was drop her off somewhere. It was very disturbing.”

Drury, who just that year had been named chaplain, said the emotional trauma took its toll on both he and the police officers.

“We talked about it, we worked together to come to terms with it,” he said. “The police officers’ reactions were very normal to an abnormal situation.”

Drury said he was very happy to hear the case was reopened and prays closure is brought from it.

“Even 30 years later, the emotions are still there, strong as ever,” he said. “We need to be reminded how precious life really is.”

A memorial event will be held in honor of Baby Mary on Dec. 20 at 11 a.m. at St. Joseph Church in Mendham Township. The community is invited to attend.