Baby Doe

A morgue has a unique smell, at least the morgue here in Prescott does. It doesn’t smell like death so much as it smells like eucalyptus oil and antiseptic, although there is that lingering hint of decomposition always in the air, like a mist that drifts along the ceiling and floors and waits for someone to stir it up. Baby Doe smelled to me like wet charcoal.

I get a knot in my stomach even now when I think back and recall that small, burned infant lying there. It did not sicken me, exactly, because she honestly did not look real. She resembled a life-sized baby doll that had been cast away at a dump site and incinerated. What I felt was revulsion and anger so intense I remember breaking out in a sweat and clenching my teeth until my jaw ached. What kind of animal could do this to a baby? And why would they do such a thing?

Detectives already had a fairly good idea of why it had happened. The assumption was that the baby had been accidentally killed by her parents, perhaps a Shaken Baby Syndrome event or simply parental anger over a fussy, crying child that went too far. As it eventually turned out, they were right, but in the meantime it was still a case of trying to identify Baby Doe.
It is extremely difficult to draw a sketch when your fingers are clenched like a vise on the pencil and your eyes are blurry with tears. I kept picturing my own daughter’s face, even though she was an adult by then, and wondering if Baby Doe’s parents were remembering her? Then I wondered, when the person or persons responsible for her death were finally found, could there ever be a jury that would be able to look past the burned, little child and give unbiased attention to any other facts? Of course, what possible reason could there ever be for anyone to set a child on fire? My thoughts ran amuck as I did my best to bring some semblance of life to Baby Doe’s face. She deserved to be remembered and identified as the sweet, beautiful child she had been before a monster ended her life.

The sketch turned out very well I thought, at least as far as I could tell. It ran in the newspapers and was shown on TV a few times, along with the skull reconstruction, and each time it was exhibited to the public we received another barrage of telephone calls from concerned citizens. This went on for several weeks and every time I saw the image I had drawn, or the reconstruction of that tiny skull, I could feel my stomach knot up with anger. I was very afraid it would become a Cold Case and that Baby Doe would gradually be forgotten. I wanted the person or persons who were responsible for ending her young life to have to answer for their crimes. Not only in another life someday, but here and now, where I could see their faces and maybe have some inkling of why they had done such a hateful thing.
Bay Doe was eventually identified, but not from my drawing or the skull reconstruction. It was another process of witnesses and two-plus-two-equals-four police work. That’s what the detectives do and they do it very well. Amazingly, there was a definite resemblance to her features in my drawing and also in the skull reconstruction, so I felt good about that. It was also good to know her killers, her own parents, were found and the punishment was dealt. As suspected, Baby Jane Doe had been a victim of Shaken Baby Syndrome. Her parents were living in Las Vegas and had chosen a stretch of Arizona highway to discard of their child’s body. Eventually a neighbor got suspicious and reported to the police that she had not seen the little girl next door for quite a while. That was all it took for the investigation to reach an end, even though it took some time.

I still think about Baby Doe from time to time, even after all these years, especially when I am around my own grandchildren. She was a hard way for me to begin my sideline of post-mortem identification sketches but it also gave me a feeling of accomplishment. I felt that if I could get through that drawing, I could probably handle almost anything forensics sent my way, and I was right.