One Missing Infant, One Dead Baby Boy
When Melissa Mitin, the young Okemos woman accused of murdering her newborn infant last year, testified in court recently to the fact that she had given birth again just weeks ago but didn’t know where her baby was, the state held their breath.
Somewhere out there was a baby, possibly alive, more likely not. No one was certain.
When, days later, a newborn baby boy’s body was discovered mixed in with the discarded recyclables at the Roseville recycling center, law enforcement assumed, as did most others, that Mitin’s missing child had been found.
DNA samples were taken, and the wait began….
During the wait for the lab results, Roseville Police Chief James Berlin expressed his desire for the child to be Mitin’s baby. For the baby to belong to another mother, he reasoned, would mean that there is a second mother out there willing to discard her newborn like garbage.
But as it turns out, Chief Berlin’s worst fears have been realized. DNA testing revealed that the little boy, wrapped in an old black T-shirt and frozen solid, was not Mitin’s baby. And now law enforcement have two mysteries to solve: the whereabouts of Mitin’s missing baby, and the identity of the abandoned baby boy’s parents.
Police searched every single item and scrap of paper that arrived at the recycling center in the same dumpster as the baby in the hopes of identifying where he was born. But so far, there are more questions than answers.
Chief Berlin describes the search as looking for “a needle in a haystack”. For this reason he says, the police desperately need the assistance of the public in solving this crime. He is certain that the answers are out there, it is simply a matter of getting people to speak up. “Someone knows somebody who may have been in this predicament.”
Although the Roseville recycling center accepts materials from about half of the state, police have been able to narrow down the search to a handful of counties based on the contents of the dumpster the baby was found in. According to Chief Berlin, investigators are now focusing their attention on Roscommon, Midland, Arenac, and possibly even Ingham counties.
According to the medical examiner, it is believed that this baby was born alive and probably even breathed for a while, although the cause of death has not yet been formally released. The baby’s body did have some cuts and bruises, but it is currently not known whether these are signs of abuse, or the result of being transported with trash. The final results of the autopsy are still waiting on the blood test results.
Mitin, whose baby has yet to be found, is currently being held in the Ingham County Jail after her bond was revoked. A competency exam has been ordered, but could take up to three months to complete.