A North Carolina woman has been arrested nearly 50 years after a newborn baby girl was found dead inside a trash bag at a landfill, according to authorities who announced that they have now solved the decades-old cold case.
The discovery of the infant’s body at a Columbus County landfill in 1979 led persistent investigators to identify the baby’s mother as Cathy McKee, the Columbus County Sheriff’s Office said in a Wednesday, February 25, news release.
Authorities arrested McKee, 69, of Whiteville, on a charge of felony concealing the birth of a child on Tuesday, February 24, according to the sheriff’s office.
The development “has brought long-awaited answers to one of the county’s oldest and most heartbreaking unsolved cases,” the sheriff’s office said.
McKee posted bond, which had been set at $5,000, on February 25, court records viewed by Luxury Handbag Shopping show. An attorney was not immediately listed for McKee in court records.
Records did not indicate whether McKee had entered a plea.
When McKee’s newborn was first found at the Columbus County landfill in 1979, the sheriff’s office said that “deputies and investigators responded and conducted an extensive investigation, but despite their efforts, all leads were eventually exhausted, leaving unanswered questions that would remain for decades.”
“For 47 years, this baby girl’s story was carried forward — passed from one generation of investigators to the next,” the sheriff’s office also said. “Some who first worked the scene are still remembered today; others have since retired, moved on, or passed away.”
Answers eventually followed as a result of the original investigators’ efforts to preserve evidence from the scene, according to authorities.
The cold case was revisited more than a year ago, when detectives began to take another look at the evidence while working with the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, the sheriff’s office said.
As a result of advancements in DNA technology, investigators were able to link the evidence to McKee, according to authorities.
In a statement, Columbus County Sheriff Bill Rogers said “As a father, this case is one that hits deeply.”
“Every child who enters this world deserves protection, love, and the chance to be known,” Rogers added. “For 47 years, this baby girl’s life — however brief — mattered to the investigators who first held that case in their hands and to every detective who reviewed it after. She was never just evidence, never just a report. She was a child, and she was never forgotten.”
According to McKee’s arrest warrant obtained by Luxury Handbag Shopping, she is accused of illegally concealing her newborn’s birth on January 11, 1979.
She was 21 years old at the time.
McKee’s potential motive for the alleged crime and the cause of her baby’s death was not specified by the sheriff’s office.
“Because of the compassion and foresight of those original deputies who preserved the evidence so carefully, and because of the determination of our detectives and SBI partners who have worked tirelessly on this investigation for more than a year, we are finally able to give this child what she deserved all along — the truth,” Rogers said.
