Needham Police Reopen 1986 Infant Homicide Case

A new video posted this week on The Needham Channel's YouTube page takes another look at a homicide case from 1986, in which the body of an infant girl was found in a trash barrel at in Needham.

The video story, which first aired on local cable on Thursday, June 14, is a follow-up to an investigative report The Needham Channel produced in 2006, which looked into the unsolved homicide of an unidentified infant who was posthumously named "Fredericka Mary."

According to The Needham Channel report by Joe McGinty, on Mother's Day, May 11, 1986, a man searching for recyclable bottles at Claxton Field came across the body of an infant, wrapped in a shopping bag from a local supermarket. The 4 pound 7 ounce infant was determined to have been alive at the time of her birth and had the embilical cord still attached, according to the report.

The infant's cause of death was listed as "unattended birth" on her death certificate, a copy of which The Needham Channel obtained for the report.

Recently, the working with the Norfolk County District Attorney's Office has reopened the case and is looking into how new tools and information could help solve the decades-old case.

In an interview with The Needham Channel, Needham Police Chief Phil Droney said the department was looking into the case and had contacted the DA's office for assistance.

"Right now at this stage, there may be somebody out in the neighborhood or in the town or in the surrounding area that at the time didn't come forward and might have a small piece of information that could help us in this investigation," Droney said in the interview with The Needham Channel. "We're hoping [...] that someone might have a small part of this that could aid us, a clue, to bring this case to closure."

Needham Police can be reached at 781-455-7570.

To find out when the video will air on local cable, visit the Needham Channel website.