Boston 'Baby Doe' ID'd as 'Bella,' After Months-Long Mystery

There has been a major break in the mysterious case of a young girl found dead inside a trash bag whose identity and manner of death have been unknown for months, officials said today.

The girl nicknamed by authorities as "Baby Doe" was a girl named "Bella," Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker said today.

At one point, the child was involved with the Department of Children and Families (DCF), Baker said, noting that he believed the case opened and closed in 2013. The DCF has not been involved in this case since, he said.

Baker said he believes the girl's mother has other, much older children.

DCF spokeswoman Rhonda Mann said in a statement: "DCF has not had an open case with this family for over two years, but did have brief involvement with Baby Bella as an infant. Our thoughts are with Bella’s extended family as the investigation into her death continues."

The mother and father have apparently been identified, said Massachusetts Speaker of House of Representatives Robert DeLeo. DeLeo said he thinks the mother is being questioned and the boyfriend is at Beth Israel Hospital.

Boston Police Commissioner William Evans said no one is in custody to his knowledge and the state police is handling the case.

Boston Police said today they received a tip that led authorities to a house in Dorchester, Massachusetts, where a search warrant was executed in connection to the Baby Doe case.

State Police spokesman Dave Procopio said the investigation is ongoing and the department has nothing more to add. 

 

On June 25, a dog walker found a girl's body on the western shore of Deer Island in Winthrop, a peninsula in Boston Harbor opposite Logan Airport, the Massachusetts State Police said. The girl, approximately 4 years old, was found with a fleece blanket and wrapped in a trash bag, police said.

"We're trying to put all these pieces together," Procopio told ABC News earlier this month. "Trying to get a picture of her life ... and by learning about how she lived, hopefully we'll be able to focus our efforts to identify her on specific areas, and learn the circumstances of how she died."

Jake Wark, a spokesman for Suffolk County District Attorney Dan Conley, told ABC News this summer that, "At the heart of this investigation is determining the identity of an innocent child and giving her the dignity of a burial under her true name."

Police released a computer-generated composite image of the girl this summer, prepared by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, to depict what she may have looked like. The girl was described as having brown eyes and brown hair. She weighed about 30 pounds and stood about 3 feet 6 inches tall, police said.

Police also released images of the leggings she was wearing when discovered, as well as the zebra-striped blanket found with her body.