The Abandonment Of Baby Jacob Gerard By: Listverse ~Shadow Following Sunday service on the morning of February 27, 1994, the congregation of the Holy Counselor Lutheran Church in Vernon, New Jersey made a shocking discovery: the body of a newborn baby boy lying in the snow outside one of the church windows. The unidentified child weighed approximately 3 kilograms (7 lb), and his naked body was wrapped in a thin blanket. Unfortunately, the infant was frozen solid, so an autopsy could not be performed until the body thawed three days later. The child was likely placed outside the church sometime during the night and died of hypothermia and exposure in the freezing temperatures. The umbilical cord was still attached to the child’s body but looked as if it had been torn rather than cut, suggesting he wasn’t born at a hospital. The church held a memorial service for the unidentified child and buried him behind the church in North Hardyston Cemetery. The biblical story of Jacob happened to be the subject of their sermon on the morning he was found, and St. Gerard is the Roman Catholic patron saint of newborn children, so they named the child Jacob Gerard. Since Baby Jacob appeared to be perfectly healthy before his abandonment, the case was classified as a homicide. DNA was taken from his blanket in an attempt to determine who was responsible for his death, but 20 years later, Jacob Gerard remains unidentified.
Posted on: Sat, 08 Nov 2014 09:30:00 +0000
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