Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - UPDATE: SUSPECTED KILLER FOUND! Newborn baby girl, umbilical cord still attached, dies alone in metal trash drum sucking her thumb for comfort. WHO LEFT HER TO DIE?

Episode Date: October 3, 2019

Body of an infant baby girl found in a metal trash can. Who left her there? Nancy Grace talks with a panel of experts on an arrest in the case of Baby Jane Doe. Our panel includes: Ashley Wilcott, Judge and trial attorney; Joseph Scott Morgan, Forensic Expert: Dr. Michelle Dupre, Medical Examiner; Shera LaPoint, Genetic Genealogist; Major Wendell Raborn,  Iberia Parish Sheriff's office; Catalean Theriot, Comprehensive Victim Intervention Specialist Louisiana 16th Judicial District Attorney's Office; and  KADN News 15 Reporter Leigha McNeil  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Authorities arrested 50-year-old Sonia Charles of New Iberia in the death of her baby 25 years ago. The murder happened on January 24, 1994 in Jenneret when the newborn girl was found dead in a trash bin at a car wash. Detectives reopened the case after new leads developed. From the re-examined evidence, detectives found a DNA profile that matched with a family relation. A DNA sample was taken from Charles and a match was made that identified Charles as the mother of the baby. Sonia Charles was booked into the Iberia Parish Jail for first-degree murder.

No bond has been set. Wow, this is unheard of. First of all, this tiny baby girl left to die in a cold metal drum outside a gas station. The temperatures dipping through the night, the little baby was found dead, sucking her thumb for comfort. She was in a plot, Jane Doe, an unidentified little coffin. Until in the last days, literally a miracle. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. With me, an all-star panel led off by Major Wendell Rayburn.

Kathleen Theriault, Comprehensive Victim Intervention Specialist at Louisiana's 16th Judicial District Attorney's Office. Cheryl LaPointe, genetic genealogist, the gene hunter, Dr. Ryan Fuller, and boy, do we need a shrink, Dr. Michelle Dupree, renowned medical examiner out of South Carolina, author of Homicide Investigation Field Guide, and renowned defense lawyer, former prosecutor out of the Atlanta jurisdiction, Daryl Cohen. With me right now, investigative reporter with KADN News 15, Leah McNeil. Leah, hold on, Leah. To Major Wendell Rayburn out of the Iberia Parish Sheriff's Office. Major Rayburn, I don't know if congratulations are in order

at a moment like this after so many years of a quote cold case identifying a tiny baby's body. I remember as a prosecutor when I would get a conviction on a hard-fought murder case, people come up and congratulate me and I wouldn't feel like congratulations were in order at all because everybody was leaving that courtroom with a broken heart. But in this case, Major Rayburn, there are congratulations in order. How is your office feeling now that this tiny body has been identified? Everybody's satisfied, Nancy. I mean, they've reached a conclusion on a case,

and as you know, that's always gratifying. We congratulated our detective for completing the case. The work's not over yet. He's still got work to do. He's got to get it prepared for prosecution. But he got the pat on the back he deserves, and we're very encouraged by what happened and the process that happened, you know, with the science coming into play. You know, a 25-year-old cold case now solved.

Let's just start at the beginning. Back to our investigative reporter joining us from KADN News 15, Leah McNeil. Leah, describe to me how this little baby was found sucking its thumb. Well, it's truly heartbreaking. If you just look at the facts of the case, she was found in a trash can just thrown on the side of the road near Car Wash in Generette, Louisiana, and was found, like you said earlier, sucking her thumb for comfort. She had her reports say that her umbilical cord was still attached, so she was just thrown in there right after birth and just without any, with no one. She was there alone by herself in a trash can and died alone. Oh my goodness. It's just so hard for me to take in.

Dr. Ryan Fuller, clinical and forensic psychologist, joining us. Dr. Fuller, I just can't get it. When I see a cat or a dog, I nearly missed a flight the other day. I was heading up to Winnipeg, the lovely Winnipeg, to work on a Hallmark Christmas movie. And I was very beside myself. I had to leave my family at church, okay, the twins, very likely misbehaving in the balcony,

very likely, in order to catch this flight. And snuck back by the house to see my mom to make sure she was okay before I left. She was snoozing away and on the way to the airport, I see a dog running up and down the street. I'm like, oh dear Lord, you are testing me this morning because I know I've got to get out and keep that dog from getting run over. Luckily, I just happened to see a guy step out of his door, a grown man who is a leader in the twins scout troop. And I yelled out the car window, you have got to help me, Mr. Man. I didn't even know the guy's name. I said, I'm going to miss my flight for work. Can you please take this dog? So he don't, and the guy did take the dog and I made it to the airport. And I'm just, my point is, in a very roundabout way, Dr. Fuller, this little baby was found completely naked, put down in a cold 55-gallon metal drum,

and as Leah pointed out correctly, behind Bob's car wash in Junrette. And it had to be in the dark of the night. How do you, couldn't even leave a dog. How could somebody leave a little baby? Dr. Fuller, just leave it in a trash can, a drum. Yeah, I don't think many of us can ever make sense of anyone doing anything like that to another living human being. And I think when we imagine the kind of empathy and feelings and thinking that we imagine a mother to have, you know, this is something that is difficult to believe. I mean, as you said, you had empathy and compassion for a dog. And I think it just goes to show, you know, in a situation like this,

we don't know what was going on for her cognitively or emotionally, but clearly, you know, in a situation like this, we don't know what was going on for her cognitively or emotionally, but clearly, you know, she's not thinking about what the repercussions are for this other living human being, in this case, her own child. And for you, a mother, you know, I don't even think there's any way for you to make any sense of it from an emotional standpoint, a psychological standpoint, or a cognitive standpoint. It just seems beyond imagination. It's just making me cry even thinking about it, thinking about what that child went through.

To Kathleen Theriault, Comprehensive Victim Intervention Specialist there at Louisiana 16th Judicial District Attorney's Office, that's a mouthful. Kathleen, just thinking about the baby there through the night. You know how many times, and I'm certainly not the world's best mother because I tanked the twins up on Krispy Kreme donuts last night. We had a donut party right before they went to bed and do all sorts of things like keep them up late and make them play until I'm ready to go to bed. Kathleen, just the thought of this little baby being left in that drum the way she was to die, and she was covered up by newspaper, so nobody would see her.

Nobody was there to hear her little cries. She probably couldn't cry any louder than a kitten just born. And I remember, Kathleen, when the twins, oh, here I go. Here it comes. Daryl Cohen, you got to stop me. Okay. I remember when the twins were born, had to hold their little head up to bathe them and take care of them. And this little baby was left like that, Kathleen. It's so sad. And as the doctors say, we don't know what was going on. But I can tell you, by losing my only child, I don't know how this mother could have done that. I really don't.

Until today, I'm still trying to fathom what was going on in her mind. But that poor little angel did not deserve that at all. Kathleen, with me, guys guys a very special guest today Kathleen Theriault, Major Wendell Rayburn, Cheryl LaPointe all of us joined together Leah McNeil K-A-D-N about this day and it's a sad day because we're thinking about what this baby went through yet it is a victorious day and we don't get very many of those in our line of business do we daryl cohen former prosecutor now defense attorney there's not many days that we have a tear of happiness no in our lines of business no we don't i am. I am not only sad, I'm mad. And I'm so mad that this woman would do what she did

callously, regardless of whatever her mental motives were. This is a wonderful day to cap a sad, unbelievably sad beginning. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. We are talking about this tiny baby girl left to die and a cold metal drum outside a gas station. To Cheryl LaPointe, joining me, genetic genealogist, the gene hunter. Cheryl LaPointe, how did it happen? How has the body been identified? Well, Nancy, the body was actually identified through a familial DNA match. In 2017, Louisiana actually started allowing familial DNA searches in the CODIS system, which basically means if you don't have an exact match to a criminal in the system, you can run the DNA for a family match, such as a parent, a sibling, or a child. And in this case, the lab, Acadiana Crime Labs,

actually had a good DNA sample from the baby that was taken at autopsy. And when the case was brought to their attention, we realized that, or they realized that, a body very possibly would not have to be exhumed. And they ran this DNA sample. And actually, it's my understanding they came up with a sibling match to the baby. You know, it was never in my mind that this happened 25 years ago. And there was a possibility that this child would have a sibling out there that possibly had committed a crime. So once that was run through the CODA system, they came up with a match, and through that they were able to identify who the mother was.

Let me ask you something. Major Wendell Rayburn joined me from Iberia Parish Sheriff's Office. Major, let me understand something. The case is 25 years old. How did, and at the time, you guys did everything you could. Now, I understand the baby was found dead of hypothermia. Hold on, Major. Let me throw this to Dr. Michelle Dupree, South Carolina medical examiner,

author of Homicide Investigation Field Guide. Dr. Dupree, I appreciate you being with us. And certainly, you know, you heard Daryl Cohen and I crying about how we don't have many happy days in our business. Well, we don't have the leg to stand on compared to you. How many thousands of autopsies have you done, Dr. Dupree? Approximately 3,000. Good Lord in heaven. I'm very old. You are not very old. And you know what's interesting? I guess I'm going to have to ask Dr. Fuller about this when we're off air. Dr. Dupree, after all you've seen and all you've handled, thousands of autopsies, and you too, Daryl Cohen, thousands of violent crimes,

when I guest with you guys, you're often the cheeriest people on the, you just, you just keep your nose in the wind and your eye on the horizon, to steal a phrase from Will Rogers. Dr. Dupree, it's a joy having you with us. Explain to me how just simply being outdoors, the baby wasn't strangled, stabbed, shot, smothered, asphyxiated in any way? How do you just die from being outdoors? Nancy, it's just the elements. And again, not getting the medical attention, not getting the nutrition that the baby would need. They will dehydrate. They will eventually, bodies can only live for approximately three days, even less if you're an infant, three days without water. They just can't do it.

This little baby, dubbed Baby Jane Doe by investigators, was found on a cold January 24, 1994, in a 55-gallon drum hidden back behind Bob's car wash in Jeannerette. Major Wendell Raybourne, tell me the circumstances around her discovery. Now, wasn't she found not only sucking her thumb, umbilical cord still attached, and the placenta was attached to the cord? What else was in that metal drum? Well, we were able to recover five different pieces of evidence. There was, of course, newspapers covering the child with blood samples on there. There was a woman's girdle that we're thinking that she was trying to conceal the pregnancy,

and she disposed of this along with the baby. There were some other receipts and documents in there. We're not sure if they're related to this case. They may have just been placed in there before. But luckily, the crime lab had preserved the DNA from the placenta, the mother's DNA, and the infant's DNA for 25 years. And we're very fortunate we have a good crime lab here in New Iberia in the Acadiana region that helped us out. Tell me something, 25 years past Major Rayburn, and at the time you guys did everything you could. You even went to the lingerie shop where you believe the girdle was sold because it's a very, very small town.

And I was stunned. Nobody noticed someone was pregnant and it suddenly wasn't. You worked the case. Your office worked the case. What took so long to realize or to think of taking the DNA and putting it in a database because there was no exhumation. It ended up not being necessary. How did you come up with the idea? Well, actually, the DNA, the child of the baby Jane Doe's DNA has been at the lab all this time. It's just a matter of getting a familiar match against it. The case detective took all the evidence and just, he asked the crime lab, I know it's been a long time, but can y'all rerun this since different criminals are having to input their DNA into the CODIS system and see if we can get a hit?

We had had a lead that there may have been a relationship in another state that was in CODIS. So they went that direction first, and the crime lab pointed and said, hey, we have one better for you that's even a closer match. And they told us that if you can find the family tree of this person, you're going to find this baby's mother. And that's even a closer match. And they told us that if you can find the family tree of this person, you're going to find this baby's mother. And that's what our detective did. We actually had a search warrant to obtain the DNA from the suspected mother, but she cooperated and gave it up. And when all the whistles and bells went off and got 100% match, you know, it was a very simple job after that to get a warrant and make the arrest. You know, just hearing you describe that, how does that work?

Does Cheryl appoint genetic genealogists with a gene hunter? How does that work? Well, Nancy, the way that it works is you actually, DNA is shared 50-50 with a parent. A child will have basically 50% of the mother's DNA and 50% of the father's DNA. So each relationship from there varies. And it is, DNA does not lie. And so when you have a match,

say in this case, it was a sibling match, and that, again, is shared in cinnamorgans, and a sibling match will be within a certain range. And we know when we see those numbers that it does not lie. It tells you that there is a relationship there. And we can find, you build family trees and you find family. And you look for the right person at the right time. And fortunately, to have a sibling match is just amazing, actually, in this case, because lots of times when we do this kind of work, especially when I search for adoptees, we may just have a second or third cousin match. And it's much more detailed to do that. But in this case, it was wonderful that the lab was able to come up with this match. And again, had a family member not been in trouble with the law, this wouldn't have happened. It would not have been this easy. Not that I'm saying it's easy, but it it would not have been this easy you know not that i'm saying it's easy

but it would it definitely would not have been this easy to actually find the family on january 23rd an infidel fell dead in a 55-gallon drum. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Down in Carwash there in Generette, Louisiana. 25 years later. Answers. If you go to CrimeOnline.com, there is posted the most poignant picture and it is of this little baby with a doll with a little blanket around her head in her casket that was the most love this child ever received leah mcneil with me

k-a-d-n news 15 leah who is mother? And I wonder what the siblings are thinking today now that they find out they had a little sister. Leah, tell me. The mother was, of course, arrested by a Liberia Parish Sheriff's Office. 50-year-old Sonia Charles was arrested. But just getting back to the city of Jenneret, this was, like you mentioned earlier, a very, very small town. So this was a dark chapter in the small town of Jenneret for 25 years. was announced to arrest, there was not one person that I talked to who did not know of this case and did not know that Sonia Charles was arrested and was, for lack of a better word, happy that this dark chapter was finally able to be closed or justice can finally start, you know, taking place and they can get an arraignment and get her, you know, convicted of this. Because like I said,

almost everyone I talked to knew of this case. Their children knew of this case, their grandkids. It was just everyone knew about this baby. And, you know, on her grave stone, it reads, only God and her mother knew her name. And for a lot of the locals I talked to, they say they just want to give her a name. And that's still a big, big part of this story, that they just want to give her a name, and that's still a big, big part of this story, that they just want to, you know, give her a name and not just Baby Jane Doe.

The then-Generate Alderman, Bob Fontenot, owned that car wash, and he is the one that found the baby early, early morning hours, probably still dark outside, January 24, 1994, when he was taking out trash. Now, the Iberia Parish coroner, James Falterman, said the baby was alive when she was thrown away, the placenta and umbilical cord still attached to our specialist, Dr. Michelle Dupree, South Carolina medical examiner and author. Dr. Dupree, how would the Aberia Parish coroner, Falterman, have known she was alive when she was put in that metal drum? Well, Nancy, when a baby is born, obviously one of the first things they do is take a breath. And so when we perform an autopsy, we actually look at the lung tissue to see if it is air-filled, if the alveoli, which are the little sacs in the lung, and the baby did take a breath. Otherwise, if they are not, then we know that the baby was still born.

Wow. Okay, I want to go to you, Daryl Cohen, now defense attorney, former prosecutor, inner-city Atlanta. What will the mother, Sonia Charles, be facing? She's going to be facing murder, and I'm not as familiar with Louisiana law as I could be, but she is facing murder, and I suspect the rest of her life in prison, unless there's enough testimony from other people who have come out and said she's a good person. But I got to tell you, Nancy, she's not a good person. She wasn't a good person.

And I think that she deserves every bit of penalty that she can possibly get. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. Talia McNeil, KADN News 15. What about the sibling? Has anyone tracked down the sibling and their response, if any, to finding out they have had a sister? I haven't been able to contact any siblings, but I did run by a woman at a grocery store in Jinnaret, and she claims to have known Miss Sonia Charles, and she said that she lived you know in

Jenneret for a while that they went to the same church. She said that she never expected her to have done something like this so that's that's the closest person that I found in Jenneret that or if that is claiming to know Sonia Charles. So many leads were re-examined, all the evidence in this case reviewed, and then amazingly, a familial match in the combined DNA index system, that's CODIS, and that led to Sonia Charles and the identification through a sibling. This was practically unimaginable. Just one year ago, this case, as Leah McNeil told us, hung over the community. Major Wendell Raybourne, what has been the response amongst the sheriff's office when they found out this case had been solved?

Well, a lot of people, a lot of our guys were stunned, actually, because they believed this was a typical cold case, unsolvable, you know, 25 years old. Most of the people they had worked on, the chief investigator, the chief of police from Generet, has passed away, you know, it was collecting dust. And for it to come out in the light that, you know, science helped solve this and bring it, you know, to a closure, hopefully to a closure, you know, guys were surprised. And we actually have a couple of employees that remember Sonja Charles and had worked with her in Generette before they became employees of ours. And they were stunned. Major Rayburn, where did she work? What do we know about her? She was working at, currently she was employed by the school system. I'm not sure her exact

position. Previously when she was in Jenrette, I believe she worked at the Fruit of Loon Mill for a while. There's not a lot of industry in Jenrette, and well, I don't know much about her background from there. Wow, she's only 50 years old now, and this is a 25-year-old cold case, so we know to Daryl Cohen, you know what, hold on, let me go to this to Dr. Ryan Fuller, because we need to shrink. Dr. Ryan Fuller, clinical and forensic psychologist. Dr. Fuller, she was 25 years old, if my math is correct, at the time she had the baby. She was holding down a full-time job and has held down others since then, has had other children. So in my mind,

clearly she was not out of her mind or insane or had some sort of delusion at the time that she left the baby to die. So what do you make of that? Yeah, again, I mean, without doing a full psychiatric assessment on any particular individual, you know, we would just be speculating. But certainly 25 years old, you know, your brain has developed quite a bit. I mean, there is some evidence that some of the frontal cortex and things like that may not develop until around that time, but this is not, you know, obviously not the same as a teenager or something like that. And as you're saying, if you're laying out that she was able to hold down full-time employment and she had other children later, you know, the development, of course, does appear as though she might have

been competent in a number of different ways. And so it makes it even more difficult to understand what possibly could have been happening in terms of her thinking and judgment and emotion at the time to uh the finding of a of a girl which sounds like the you know the inference being drawn is that she was trying to conceal it for some reason and so it really just you know you can't make sense of it which is why you're probably asking me the question you just you know we can't really make sense of imagining an adult who's competent enough to do all these other things and ends up having children later apparently wanting to have a family making a choice like that and it just i think it uh gets us to struggle trying to understand how how human beings end up in situations where they make

choices like that and uh the horrible tragedy here is this infant, you know, lost her life. And it's obviously just a horrible, horrible tragedy. Kathleen Theriault with me, and she is a victim intervention specialist there in Louisiana. Kathleen, I want to find out where you were when you found out the case had been solved. Sitting in my, when I got the text message saying that the case was solved. Because that will be our case. So we will be representing the little angel. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.

I'm looking at a photo right now. It's a 1994 file photo. Baby Jane Doe buried in the Iberia Parish after being found dead in a trash can. And it's a black and white photo and there is a whole trail of people following along there's two police on either side of her little white casket with flowers on top and it looks like maybe a detective carrying it and all of these people following along behind none of them knew the baby none of them knew the mother but they were all so attached to this baby and what the baby had been through the little girl had no family to mourn her death and the put the sheriff's department and the people of Jean Rhett took this child's death to heart and they all came and walked a great distance carrying her little coffin to its burial place.

Leah McNeil, I'm just, Leah McNeil joining me with KADN News 15. Leah, I'm very curious about Sonia Charles and the rest of her children and how you just go back into your regular life, how you walk away from that metal drum and just step away from a car wash and into your regular life like nothing ever happened. I mean, what do we know about her, Leah? Yeah, this time all we know that you know through the DNA evidence that she she is the mother um and like other reports have said you know that she does have other kids you know at

this time we were not able to track those children down but I mean we would I'm sure we would all hope that maybe they came later on and they hopefully they didn't come you know before this child because I can't you know I can't even fathom how you could just go on with your daily life after just doing something like this I I just this whole case I'm not done looking into this case because it's just there are still so many unanswered questions and so many things that, you know, we all, we just want to know how did like, how this happened? Why did this happen? Somebody had to have seen, somebody had to have known that she's pregnant. I don't know if it was the great girdle she had on, but most people I know that are pregnant, you, you, it's not,

it's not easy to hide a pregnancy like that. And to think every day she went about her business, Kathleen, wondering, am I going to be caught with this hanging over her head? I guess it bothered her, Kathleen Theriot. I would hope it did bother her. I really do, because no mother should do that to their own child. Major Wendell Rayburn with me with the Iberia Parish Sheriff's Office. Major Rayburn, did she give any statement whatsoever? Do we know anything more about the mother's background or her family?

Well, certainly I can't get into the specifics of the statement she gave other than one word, and that's denial. And that's about all we got from her. Like I said, specifics, I can't get into that. Her family, her current family, basically what we've seen and been told is disbelief, and it pretty much attacked us, and we're just framing her for this. The keyboard bullies of social media have come out, but we'll stick by the evidence. The evidence is really solid, and we're 100% confident

that we had the mother of baby Jane Doe, and it's time for her to be accountable. I've never heard that phrase, keyboard bullies. I'm completely stealing it, okay? I'm going to act like it's my idea, Major Wendell Rayburn. So right now, the whole, from what you've learned, the family, her family is in disbelief and saying it's a frame up. You know what? If somebody came in and arrested my mother and said she had done this, I would fight them like a wild animal.

I would not believe it. I would fight them tooth and claw. I would deny it, deny it, deny it, because it would be so hard for me to believe it and accept it. So, you know what, Major Rayburn, I don't really fault her other children or her family for thinking my mother would never. You know what? People be very surprised at what their mothers would and have done in the past but you know how much you love your mother typically and look up to your mother and that's who loves you the most and it's such a dichotomy for me to imagine major rayburn that she's a loving mother to the other children and left this baby to die. And when I think about it, I'm sure you do know, Major Rayburn,

over 200 Iberia Parish locals gathered to lay her to rest. They even donated a christening gown and a bonnet for the little baby to be buried in. As one resident stated to the Daily Advertiser way back in 94, this baby was born into this world unwanted, but today she has a family. And the police really took this case to heart and took it very personally. Is that true, Major Rayburn? Absolutely. The chief, until his death, was determined that he wanted to solve this case.

Unfortunately, he did not live long or see it close. Our cold case detective was the original detective that was assigned to help generate the police department. I mean, he has reached a point that he's so satisfied now that, you know, he feels that, you know, it's time for him to move on to another case. But we're not finished with this case. We still have further to go. You know, the justice has to be finished. It's up to the courts, up to the DA's office from here on out, and we'll provide whatever we can to make sure that a conviction is made. You know, the police chief, Kerry Davis, at the time,

he was the acting. He was just acting. And he really got blindsided when this fell in his lap. The acting police chief, Kerry Davis, this just breaks my heart, had officers with Jean Rhett PD serve as pallbearers to take the little three-foot casket to its resting place. And inside the casket, a Raggedy Ann doll was laid by baby Jane Doe because Chief Kerry Davis did not want the baby to be buried alone. Leah McNeil, reporter KAD in News 15.

What happens now? Well, we are going to continue to follow this story all the way through. Myself and the rest of my fellow coworkers are completely attached to this case, just as everyone else is. She will, Sonia Charles, will have to, you know, go to court, get an arraignment, and hopefully, you know, be convicted, and we will continue to follow this all the way through. Guys, thank you so much for being with me. Shira, Major Rayburn, Kathleen, Leah, who have worked on this case so hard and for so long. Dr. Ryan Fuller, Dr. Michelle Dupree, and Daryl Cohen.

We wait as justice unfolds. Nancy Grace, Crime Stories, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.