Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 8, 1991 TAG: 9102080817
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Blood samples were taken last Friday, three days before the 30-year-old woman died of pneumonia in a Roanoke hospital, according to a search warrant filed in Roanoke Circuit Court.
Police said today that they have no firm information that the woman is the mother, but asked for the blood tests as part of an investigation in which each lead is being carefully examined.
An anonymous call that led to the search warrant is just one of dozens of tips police have received since they released a composite drawing of a suspect last week.
The search warrant states that on Monday, Lt. J.E. Dean of the police department's Youth Bureau received information that the woman "was the mother of Baby Boy Doe," as Isaiah has been referred to in police investigations.
A detective assigned to follow up on the call learned that the woman "had told several individuals that she had been pregnant during 1990, but none of these individuals had knowledge that the [she] had either terminated her pregnancy or successfully delivered a baby," the warrant states.
After learning that the woman had died, the detective attended her funeral and viewed the body, but was unable to identify or eliminate her based on the composite sketch, police said.
The warrant states that police obtained three vials of blood and 304 pages of medical records. It likely will be weeks before blood tests determine if the woman was Baby Isaiah's mother.
Police also wanted autopsy records, but because she died from natural causes, an autopsy was not performed, according to assistant Medical Examiner William Massello.
In a composite sketch released last week, police described a suspect in the case as an apparent homeless woman who frequented the downtown Market area and Old Southwest before the child was discovered by an unemployed construction worker looking for aluminum cans in a dumpster on Mountain Avenue.
Isaiah, as he came to be called by nurses at Roanoke Memorial Hospital, died of exposure on Christmas Eve.
Police said they believed the suspect - a short, "somewhat heavy" 20- to 30-year-old woman with dyed black hair and acne scars - may have left town shortly after the baby was found.
by CNB