Authorities have been unable to locate the parents of a stillborn baby found last October northwest of Durango.
“We never found the family,” said La Plata County Coroner Jann Smith.
On Oct. 19, a hiker discovered the body of the female wrapped in a blanket in a forested area between the 3800 block of County Road 205 and the 3800 block of County Road 203.
The La Plata County Sheriff’s Office initially investigated the incident as a homicide, but later said it was no longer considered a homicide investigation. The Sheriff’s Office then sought anyone with information about the incident.
An autopsy conducted later that week revealed the baby was stillborn, and the cause of death was a birth defect linked to brain damage. Smith said the mother essentially had a miscarriage.
It appeared the infant had been abandoned for a day or two before the body was discovered, Smith said at the time.
Chris Burke, spokesman for the La Plata County Sheriff’s Office, said in an email to The Durango Herald that the “case is inactive at the present time” and the “parents were not located.”
“There are no leads at this time,” Burke wrote.
Burke did not respond to repeated requests seeking information about what efforts were made to try to locate the parents.
Smith said blood samples were sent to a lab in an attempt to connect it to the parents, but those efforts were unsuccessful.
“We never connected it to anyone,” she said.
Burke also did not answer questions about the Sheriff’s Office future plans for the investigation, other than that the case was inactive.
