
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, February 28, 1994                   TAG: 9402280089
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: LYNCHBURG                                LENGTH: Medium

SO FAR, SEARCH FOR ABANDONED BABY'S MOTHER COMES UP EMPTY

Three months after she was found wrapped in a plastic shopping bag and lying under an oak tree, Baby Jane Doe is no closer to being reunited with her birth mother.

The infant, who was just hours old when her cries led two teen-age girls to find her and call the police, is being raised in a Lynchburg foster home.

City police are still searching for the infant's mother but say they haven't had many clues to follow, other than several telephone calls in the weeks just after the baby was found on Nov. 28.

"At the time they sounded pretty good, but we checked them out" and found they did not lead to the mother, Investigator Paul Adams said.

The infant weighed 7 pounds when she was found and appeared to have been carried to full term, authorities said.

She was originally suffering from exposure when she was found and was taken to Virginia Baptist Hospital's neonatal intensive care unit. She was discharged from the hospital less than a week later, hospital spokeswoman Mary Lawson said.

In Virginia, 111 infants less than a year old were reported abandoned to the Department of Social Services in Richmond for the 1992-93 fiscal year.

More than 14,500 infants were abandoned throughout the nation in 1990, the last year for which such figures were available, according to the American Humane Society in Denver.

In December, the Lynchburg Law Enforcement Officers Association and the local Fraternal Order of Police began offering a $500 reward to the person whose information leads to a positive identification of the baby's mother.

The child, like others that have either been abandoned, abused or neglected, was placed in the custody of the local Department of Social Services, said Brenda Kerr, human services program consultant at the state Department of Social Services in Richmond.

The city's Department of Social Services, which was granted temporary custody of the child, will not put the baby up for adoption for at least three months.

The city agency must show it has made a "diligent effort" to find the natural parents for six months before a court will consider terminating their rights to the child, Kerr said.

Foster families are usually given primary consideration for adoption, but other families also are considered, she said.

by CNB