Abandoned Newborn Twins Could Have Been Saved By Safe Haven Law

COOK COUNTY, IL — Illinois’s Safe Haven Law had been in existence for two years when the bodies of newborn twin boys were discovered in a garbage truck lift 17 years ago in unincorporated Stickney.

Advances in genetic genealogy were used this past weekend to charge a 41-year-old Michigan woman in the cold-case deaths of her newborn twins. Investigators uploaded evidence collected in 2003, and compared it to DNA in online public database from at-home genetic tests. Police said the twin boys were still alive when the woman, then 24, dumped them into a garbage bin after giving birth alone in her grandparents’ home.

It didn’t have to end up this way, said Susan Walker, founder and president of Rest In His Arms, a volunteer organization that provides Christian funerals and burials as a final act of dignity and respect for abandoned babies.

Related: New Details Emerge In 2003 Newborn Twins' Deaths, Mom Charged

“The Safe Haven Law was passed on Aug. 1, 2001,” Walker said. “She allegedly abandoned her children in 2003. The law did exist — she had an out.”

Illinois’s Safe Haven Law establishes safe places where parents can relinquish newborn infants. The purpose of the Safe Haven Law is to prevent babies from being abandoned in places where they may come to harm. Illinois’s law allows parents 30 days to physically place the baby into the arms of a staff member at a police station, firehouse or medical facility.

“The baby has to be unharmed,” Walker explained. “The law includes 24-hour medical centers, state police, or campus security police and has to be staffed. It could be the person greeting visitors at the door of the hospital, as long it’s a staff person.”

Rest In His Arms not only provides abandoned infants with a proper burial, it also gives the anonymous babies a name and friends. In 2005, Walker buried her first baby — Michael Gerard, whose remains were found in a Grayslake landfill.

“The worker who found him was devastated,” Walker said. “We had invited him to come to the funeral, but he was too traumatized. His colleagues came instead.”

Since the group’s inception, Rest In His Arms has buried 48 infants, mostly newborns, tossed away in garbage cans, landfills, ditches and under viaducts. The organization also oversees the burials of stillborn infants, and miscarried and aborted fetuses.

Related: Unknown Woman Indicted In Baby Hope Case

Walker often speaks to middle and high school students about the Safe Haven Law and how it works.

“I’ll hold up the [Safe Haven] sign,” Walker said, referring to the distinctive symbol of a hand cradling a baby. “Maybe two out of 25 or 100 students will know what the sign means.”

One thing Walker has learned over the years is that the teen mothers will usually tell one person, a friend or relative, that they’re pregnant.

“We try to reach the friends, too, so they can tell the mother about the Safe Haven Law and that she has options,” Walker said. “With cameras everywhere and now DNA, we want them to know they won’t get away with it. It may not be in a week, six months or 30 years, but eventually someone will find out, and they will be held accountable.

With millions of consumers uploading their DNA from at-home tests purchased from such companies as Ancestry.com and 23andMe to GEDMatch, a free online database, Walker believes other cold cases of abandoned newborns will be solved.

“I want justice for these children,” Walker said. “These are human beings, and someone threw away a live, breathing child."

The Chicago-based Save Abandoned Babies Foundation works to prevent the illegal abandonment of newborns by raising awareness of the safe, legal options available under the Abandoned Newborn Infant Protection Act. Since the law was passed, 142 babies have been saved, said Dawn Geras, the foundation’s founder.

“When the law works, it’s magnificent,” Geras said, “and when it doesn’t it’s pretty horrific.”

Geras was astonished to learn that Cook County Sheriff’s Police had continued to pursue the 2003 case of the abandoned newborn twins.

“I couldn’t help thinking how traumatic it must have been for them,” Geras said. “Selfishly, from the vantage point of the foundation, it’s a chance to wake up the public again about the Safe Haven Law. If people don’t know about it, how can we expect people to take advantage of it.”

Among the newborn infants tracked by Save Abandoned Babies, 42 were found alive and 34 did not survive, Geras said. The foundation also tracks the age and race of mothers identified as having abandoned their infants.

The known age of mothers:

• 13 through 17 (15 percent)
• 18 to 24 (30 percent)
• 25 to 30 (6 percent)
• Over 31 (5 percent)

The known race of infants:

• White (23 percent)
• Black (24 percent)
• Hispanic (21 percent)
• Asian (1 percent)
• Mixed-race (7 percent)

The Illinois School Code now requires that the Abandoned Newborn Infant Protection Act, or Safe Haven Law, be included in all school health education classes. Geras isn’t entirely confident the law is being enforced.

“How we reach these parents is always a question,” Geras said. “If we could get a corporate sponsorship to do a publicity campaign we could save many lives. We could give parents an alternative to abandoning babies and save them from going to jail.”

Currently, all 50 states have safe haven laws on the books. Some states have different age and time limits to turn over children; other states allow infants to be relinquished at churches.

Police said the Michigan woman had gone on to have a daughter and worked in a factory. She is alleged to have made admissions to police. She had no criminal background and was described during her bond hearing as a productive member of the community. Currently, she is being held in Cook County Jail in lieu of $150,000 bail, awaiting trial.

“What has the mom lived with for the past 17 years,” Geras said. “She could have been given the gift of comfort knowing her babies were loved and cared for, instead of the fear of someone finding out her secret and being arrested.”