THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, February 8, 1997 TAG: 9702080341
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ANGELITA PLEMMER AND CINDY CLAYTON, STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH LENGTH: 102 lines
For the third time in two years, workers at the Southeastern Public Service Authority's refuse and recycyling plant have found the body of an abandoned baby while sorting trash.
The body of a black male infant, possibly a newborn, was discovered Friday morning by two women and a man looking for aluminum cans as trash passed by on a conveyor belt, plant officials said.
The child's nude body was headed toward the plant's trash shredder when one of the women spotted the child. She pulled a cord to halt the conveyor belt at around 7:32 a.m.
``It's a baby! It's a baby!'' the woman screamed to nearby plant workers, said SPSA spokeswoman Felicia Blow.
``She said it looked like a doll,'' Blow said.
The woman who found the baby is a mother herself. She declined to be interviewed. The other two employees also declined to speak with reporters. All three employees received counseling for several hours through the employee assistance program at Maryview Medical Center.
``The employees look like they're doing fine,'' Blow said. ``All of them are going to work.''
For most employees at the plant on Victory Boulevard, it was business as usual Friday. Few employees eating in the cafeteria at lunchtime discussed the incident.
Police have no clues as to the identity of the baby's parents. Tracking how the body got to the plant will be difficult, police said, since the plant handles refuse from throughout southeastern Virginia.
The plant receives 1,500 to 1,700 tons of trash a day and processes 2,000 to 2,100 tons. Facility supervisor Jackie ``J.R.'' Harmon said the baby probably arrived in Friday morning's or Thursday afternoon's delivery.
``We had approximately 100 tons on the floor to start with,'' and another 30 to 40 tons were delivered Friday morning, he said.
``It's sad . . . it really is . . . to see stuff like that happen,'' Harmon said. ``What we're looking at is making sure we find out who did this.''
``We need people's help,'' said Portsmouth Police Detective Robert Huntington. ``We don't need to know anybody's name.
``Somebody's missing a baby . . . and there's a grandmother, a friend or mother who knows that somebody was pregnant and now there's no baby to account for.''
The baby discovered Friday is at least the fourth unidentified infant found dead in Hampton Roads in the past two years. Three were found at the SPSA plant. Another was discovered at the Lillian Vernon Distribution Center in Virginia Beach.
None of the cases has been solved, and none of the bodies has been claimed.
In February 1995, the body of a black female newborn was found on a conveyor belt by SPSA workers. Her body was plucked from the stream of refuse just before it reached a shredding machine.
Because she was found the day before Valentine's Day, she was nicknamed ``Baby Angel Valentine'' by one of the women who found her.
An autopsy showed the baby had been alive at birth and suffered severe trauma before her death.
Portsmouth police investigated her death as a homicide. She was buried in March 1995.
Last June, a black female infant was found in a pile of aluminum cans and other trash headed to an incinerator. Weighing about 8 pounds, the baby had no clothing or distinguishing marks when she was spotted by workers, who named her ``Baby June.'' She was buried last September.
In December, a newborn baby girl was found wrapped in a red golf shirt in a plastic bag hanging from a coat hook at the Lillian Vernon Distribution Center in Virginia Beach. Because she was so badly decomposed, the medical examiner was not able to determine the girl's race. Her cause of death also has not been determined.
The infant girl was believed to have been dead for three to five days. She was spotted by a maintenance worker just hours after a bomb threat had forced the building's evacuation.
Three other bodies have been found at the SPSA plant in the past six years:
In 1991, a woman's dismembered torso was found amid the trash. It had no head, only one hand, no fingers and no legs. X-rays revealed the torso belonged to Janice Lee, a Chesapeake woman who had been missing for 10 days.
In 1993, a man's body was found at the plant. It was identified as John Lewis, 51, of Suffolk. His body had been dumped in Norfolk.
In 1994, another man's body was found at the plant. It was identified as James A. Brown, 37, of Virginia Beach.
Anyone with any information regarding any of these incidents is asked to contact Detective Huntington at 393-8536 or Portsmouth Crime Line at 488-7777 or Virginia Beach Crime Solvers at 427-0000. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by MARK MITCHELL/The Virginian-Pilot
Supervisor Jackie Harmon looks at the area at the bottom of the
Southeastern Public Service Authority refuse facility's conveyor
belt where a baby's body was found Friday morning.
Graphic
Other Recent Cases
February 1995: The body of a black female newborn was found on a
conveyor belt by SPSA workers. She was nicknamed ``Baby Angel
Valentine'' by one of the women who found her.
June 1996: The body of a black female infant was found in a pile
of aluminum cans and other trash headed to an incinerator at SPSA.
She was nicknamed ``Baby June.''
December 1996: A newborn baby girl was found wrapped in a red
golf shirt in a plastic bag hanging from a coat hook at the Lillian
Vernon Distribution Center in Virginia Beach.
KEYWORDS: ABANDONED BABY SPSA