For 29 years, the disturbing question reserved a place in the minds of investigators at the Mobile County Sheriff's office... and there it stayed, begging to be
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After 29 years, Mobile Co. deputies say they now know who killed 'Angel Baby'
For 29 years, the disturbing question reserved a place in the minds of investigators at the Mobile County Sheriff's office... and there it stayed, begging to be answered.
Who tossed her infant child into the headwaters of Fowl River, leaving the little girl to drown?
And why?
Now, after 29 long years, those investigators believe they've reached that ending.
It came when detectives took a trip to Biloxi, Mississippi to talk to this woman... 44 year old Therese Purdy. Purdy was in jail, there, booked on a charge of receiving stolen property.
What lead them to Purdy?
A new development in what had been an extremely cold case- the case of an infant child whose lifeless body was discovered in May of 1995 in Fowl River near Old Pascagoula Road in Mobile County.
Investigators named the child "Angel Baby."
The infant was buried, but never forgotten.
Then, two years ago, the baby's body was exhumed for a forensic examination by genealogy expert Olivia McCarter and Moxxy Forensic Investigations.
And what they found brought new life to the investigation.
While running a DNA profile, those experts were able to establish a forensic connection to 44-year-old Therese Purdy.
It was the break sheriff's detectives had been waiting for 29 years.
"We were able to travel to Mississippi recently,” says Parsons, “because she had been arrested in Biloxi in reference to some unrelated charges. And once we had made contact with her, she provided statements to us that we felt like, if we had taken to trial, we would obtain a conviction."
Investigators also came to another disturbing conclusion about Purdy and her actions, says Parsons.
"We do not believe she attempted to reach out and obtain any help."
Detectives may have their answers, but justice in this case is elusive.
Therese Purdy, now 44, was only 15 years old when she gave birth to her child back in 1995.
Laws at the time would have required her to be tried as a juvenile.
And though that law has been change, Purdy cannot now be charged with the murder of her baby.
The case is now closed.
But new questions have now set up shop in the minds of those who pursued this case for so long.
"We don't know what lives she may have touched,” says Parsons. “We don't know what discoveries she would have made, we don't know who she would have made smile. And the fact that she was taken from this world so early and in such a horrific way, is truly the biggest travesty of all."
There is another question investigators had that is probably on your mind right now, too.
Why?
Why would a young mother deliberately throw her newborn child into a stream?
According to sheriff's investigators, the answer comes from statements Purdy gave them from the jail in Biloxi.
They say she did it to conceal her pregnancy.
www.crimewatchers.net
