A cold case involving an infant found dead in the landfill in 1979 has resulted in an arrest.
Kathy McKee, 69, of 6429 James B. White Hwy. South, was arrested Tuesday on a charge of concealing the birth of a child, according to the Sheriff’s Office. She was held under $20,000 secured bond.
Long known as one of the county’s most heartbreaking cases, the body of the infant girl was found Jan. 11, 1979 in a plastic bag at the landfill.
The NamUs project, which tracks unidentified remains, said the medical examiner’s report noted that the body was of a Caucasian child with brown hair, who had sustained “traumatic injuries” but was unidentifiable. The baby was 13 inches long, and the remains were insufficient to estimate a weight. She was approximately 24 hours old when she died. The case was added to NamUs in 2023.
The baby was buried in Whiteville Memorial Cemetery.
The case was reopened by the State Bureau of Investigation and the sheriff’s office last year, according to a press release. The original evidence in the case had been carefully reserved, and the SBI used DNA to identify McKee as the infant’s mother.
The careful work of investigators in 1979 made it possible for the case to be solved using modern technology, the press release said.
“For 47 years, this baby girl’s story was carried forward — passed from one generation of investigators to the next,” the press release said in a press release. “Some who first worked the scene are still remembered today; others have since retired, moved on, or passed away. Yet the responsibility they felt in that moment did not fade…
“They collected detailed evidence and preserved it meticulously, not knowing whether it would ever lead to answers, but believing that someday it might. Their professionalism, compassion, and foresight ensured that this baby girl would not be lost to time.”
“Because of the compassion and foresight of those original deputies who preserved the evidence so carefully, and because of the determination of our detectives and SBI partners who have worked tirelessly on this investigation for more than a year, we are finally able to give this child what she deserved all along: the truth,” Sheriff Bill Rogers said.
“As a father, this case is one that hits deeply. Every child who enters this world deserves protection, love, and the chance to be known. For 47 years, this baby girl’s life — however brief — mattered to the investigators who first held that case in their hands and to every detective who reviewed it after. She was never just evidence, never just a report. She was a child, and she was never forgotten.”
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