Newborn Found Dead At Trash Recycling Center In Connecticut

A newborn was found dead at a Connecticut recycling center Tuesday morning.

Stamford Police Lt. Tom Scanlon said the tragic discovery was made by workers around 8.40 a.m. EDT Tuesday while they were processing recyclable materials at the City Carting and Recycling facility located at 61 Taylor Reed Place. The baby appeared to be full born, he said.

Scanlon mentioned firefighters and emergency medical services were called to the scene and the boy was declared dead, ABC News reported. The case was being investigated by police and The State Office of Chief Medical Examiner.

ABC7 reported the body was found on a belt carrying recyclable material for sorting. Umbilical cord was still attached to the infant’s body, according to the sources.

The police, however, were not sure whether the child was stillborn or was discarded while still alive. An autopsy will be conducted Wednesday to determine the same.

“The obvious things are surveillance cameras, to look at the number of trucks, the origin of those trucks. Certainly City Carting has been cooperative and they'll have the logging material from those trucks, and that's what investigators are looking at right now,” Scanlon said.

“Investigators are attempting to determine the origin of the recyclables that were processed this morning. At this point, investigators have established that material was dropped off from companies that operate in the following areas: Stamford, CT; Greenwich, CT; Somers, NY; Oyster Bay area of Long Island, NY; and Andover, MA,” he said, urging anyone with information to contact SPD Major Crimes at 203-977-4420.

“It takes my breath away because someone was in distress. If it was a stillborn baby, they will be grieving terribly and someone is out there, a mother or a couple in need of help. If this was a neonaticide (killed right after birth), we have a lot more work to do promoting the baby Safe Haven law,” Pam Sawyer, a former state representative from Bolton who worked on Connecticut’s Safe Haven legislation said, Boston Herald reported.

In a similar incident in 2013, a dead baby was found at a Long Island trash facility in New York. Nassau County police said they received a call reporting a baby not breathing found at the recycling center, with its umbilical cord still attached. Police started probing the death as a homicide; however, the medical examiner's office said the baby girl was not born alive.

In another unrelated incident in 2013, a dead baby was found at a recycling plant in Westchester County, New York. The workers were sifting through piles of recyclable materials when they found the baby’s body, after which they informed the police who reached the scene and pronounced the child dead.