Arrest Made in Case of Infant Found Floating in Ocean

The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office in Florida says an arrest has been made in the "Baby June" case, more than four years after an off-duty firefighter found the body of a baby girl floating in the ocean at Boynton Beach Inlet. The sheriff's office announced Thursday that they had arrested the baby's mother, 29-year-old Arya Singh, and she will be charged with first-degree murder, the Miami Herald reports. Investigators said a match for a potential father was found on a national DNA database and the man, who said he knew nothing about a baby, was very cooperative. "He knew that he had a girlfriend around that time that told him that she had been pregnant but ... was thinking she perhaps had an abortion," said Detective Brittany Christoffel.

Christoffel said investigators used cellphone GPS records and a DNA sample from garbage Singh had discarded to build a case against her, NBC reports. Christoffel said that when Singh was arrested Thursday, she told investigators that she hadn't known she was pregnant when she gave birth on May 30, 2018. "She said that when the baby was born, she wasn't sure if the baby was alive or dead," Christoffel said. "By the time the baby went into the inlet, she was already deceased." She said Singh told investigators she "didn’t know what to do with her and she just decided that that’s where she was going to dispose of her."

Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg praised investigators for their "outstanding work using advanced technologies" and said the state plans to charge Singh, who is being held with no bond, with first-degree murder. "The men and women in law enforcement always think they're tough and they've seen it all," Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said at Thursday's press conference, per NBC. "But I guarantee you when you see an infant—a newborn infant, floating in the ocean that somebody has discarded like a piece of trash—it tugs at your heart." (More Florida stories.)