Three newborn babies found abandoned on three separate occasions at the same Florida apartment complex are all siblings with the same biological parents, officials confirmed Tuesday.
Officers from the Orlando Police Department were called to to the Willow Key Apartments on July 19 last year to reports of an abandoned baby.
The one-day-old child was found wrapped in a t-shirt and left on a tenant’s door-step, with a note explaining ‘the baby was left at the location because the mother was in fear of the child’s father and risk he posed to the child,’ police said.
But this wasn’t the first – or second – time authorities were summoned to the complex on Arnold Drive to retrieve a forsaken infant, with two near-identical incidents also happening in 2016 and again in 2017.
Officers from the Orlando Police Department were called to to the Willow Key Apartments in July last year to reports of an abandoned baby (pictured above)
But this wasn’t the first – or second – time authorities were summoned to the complex on Arnold Drive to retrieve a forsaken infant, with two near-identical incidents also happening in 2016 and again in 2017.
A handwritten note was also found in the 2017 case, which read: ‘I had him in the bathroom alone. His dad tried to kill us.
‘Please keep him secret and take him to the hospital. Dad [is] a very dangerous man.’
Police said the similarities between the three cases were too strange to ignore. Orlando detective Ghena Wasserman Luker then requested $2,500 from the city council to pay for a genetics test to be used in the investigations, a public memo shows.
Luker wrote that the ‘analogous manner’ in which all three of the children were abandoned on a resident’s stoop in the same luxury complex made police believe they must be related.
‘We can confirm that all three infants in this case are siblings but can’t comment any further, at this time, to protect the integrity of this ongoing investigation,’ police said in a statement on Tuesday, confirming the results of the DNA tests.
Police said all three of the children were also confirmed to have the same mother and father.
Through DNA testing, Luker said investigators were able to identify several possible family members of the babies, though ‘[i]nformation learned from the testing requires specialized knowledge of a genetic genealogist in order to be properly interpreted in an effort to identify the parents.’
In the 2019 case, the one-day-old child was found wrapped in a t-shirt and left on a tenant’s door-step, with a note explaining ‘the baby was left at the location because the mother was in fear of the child’s father and risk he posed to the child’
Now the OPD has filed for an addition $5,000 to enlist the services of United Data Connect, a genetic genealogist company with a vast database of DNA profiles, to help track down the children’s parents.
Now the OPD has filed for an addition $5,000 to enlist the services of United Data Connect, a genetic genealogist company with a vast database of DNA profiles, to help track down the children’s parents.
‘Based on the egregious and neglectful behavior of the parent(s), and the bizarre facts of this case, unlike any other documented case, it is imperative to conduct a well-being check of all involved parties,’ Luker wrote in memo to Police Chief Orlando Rolón.
Police declined to reveal the babies’ genders on Tuesday or reveal where they’ve been staying since their discoveries. The baby in the 2017 case was confirmed to be a boy in the mother’s note.
According to Florida’s Safe Haven Law, a guardian can leave a newborn at a hospital or fire station without facing criminal charges so long as the child is seven-days-old or younger.
Under the law, a parent in a state of distress can give up custody of their baby ‘no questions asked.’
‘They must simply bring the infant to a safe haven location and make sure they locate a person to give the child.
‘As long as the child shows no signs of intentional abuse, no name or other information is required,’ the law states.
It wasn’t clear on Tuesday if the parents, if they’re ever found, would face any criminal charges for their cited ‘egregious and neglectful behavior’ behavior.
‘If we are able to identify the mother, her safety is our top priority, as well as the safety of any other potential children.’