Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 9, 1991 TAG: 9102090501
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Blood samples were taken last week, three days before the woman died of natural causes in a Roanoke hospital, according to a search warrant filed Thursday in Roanoke Circuit Court.
Police said Friday that they have no firm evidence 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 warrant is just one of dozens of tips police have received since they released a composite drawing of a suspect last week.
The warrant states that on Monday, Lt. J.E. Dean of the Police Department 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 [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 releasing the composite sketch last week, police described a suspect in the case as an apparently 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.
Police believe the suspect whose description led to the composite sketch was a short, "somewhat heavy" 20- to 30-year-old woman with dyed black hair and acne scars. That suspect may have left town shortly after the baby was found.
Isaiah, as he came to be called by nurses at Roanoke Memorial Hospital, died of exposure on Christmas Eve.
by CNB