He Expected Cake in Mom's Freezer. Instead, a Baby

The box had sat in his mother's freezer for as long as Adam Smith could remember. Inside, she told him, was the top of a wedding cake. It was only after Barbara, 68, died of lung cancer on July 21 that Smith learned the truth, per the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "It turns out it was a baby … It still had skin, hair, and everything. It was mummified," Smith tells KSDK. "I freaked out … and called police right away." Officers who arrived at the St. Louis apartment found an infant wrapped in pink fleece within the box Smith's mother had moved to four different apartments over her lifetime. "I'm assuming it is my sister," says 37-year-old Smith, who recalls his mother mentioning her "oldest child" named Jennifer, who passed away before Smith and his 45-year-old sister were born.

Smith has since reached out to family members to learn more about his secretive mother, who was married several times. "I'm finding out my mom wasn't who I thought she was," he tells the Post-Dispatch. "She would disappear for months at a time and not contact anyone from the family." Smith says he learned his mother delivered a stillborn twin and gave the other newborn up for adoption. Smith's estranged father also told him that his mother "was pregnant on their first date and that the next time he saw her, she wasn't." With few answers, Smith can't help but feel angry. "Maybe she did something to this baby and didn't want to tell anyone because she was afraid she would get in trouble," he says. An autopsy is pending, per KMOV. Smith has supplied a DNA sample. (More Missouri stories.)