Updated: Authorites say two of three babies found in river were related

Pieces of a disturbing puzzle keep Dean Albers questioning why three babies have been discovered dead in the waters his deputies patrol.

"It's not something you want to be known for," the Goodhue County (Minn.) sheriff said in an interview Tuesday.

Albers hopes DNA results made public this week will keep the public questioning right along with him.

Released Tuesday, DNA analysis from a private Florida lab suggests a high likelihood the same woman mothered two newborn children dumped into the Mississippi River approximately four years apart, authorities said.

A third baby found this year was not related to the first two.

"This is not a desperate act committed by a desperate person," Albers said. "This is cold-blooded murder, not once but twice."

DNA results also suggest a more than 90 percent chance parents of the first two babies are Caucasian and as much as a 70 percent chance the third child is American Indian.

Authorities admitted at Tuesday's news conference they suspected in 2004 the first two children pulled from the river were linked.

They decided not to release the information in hopes of keeping information coming from the public.

"We wanted everybody to call in with everything. We didn't want to narrow the focus," said Tim O'Malley, superintendent with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. "We didn't want private citizens doing their own investigations."

With a price tag of approximately $4,000, Albers said results from the Florida laboratory have given police their best shot yet at determining who dumped the bodies.

Authorities can now narrow their search of likely parents.

However, they said the information paints an unsettling picture of at least one of the parents.

"It's now been shown that one person can do this twice, and that really concerns me," Albers said. "I don't want a fourth."

Public's help needed

Authorities hope the tidbit of information released this week will help rustle information from the public.

Albers remains confident someone else besides the person who dumped the babies has information useful to authorities.

"I think they will step back if they have information and they are going to look at it differently today than they did yesterday," Albers said.

O'Malley agreed, noting that other Goodhue County cases have been solved with the help of a "vigilant and engaged public."

Authorities said it is likely that whoever dumped the bodies is familiar with or knows the area.

The two mothers, police added, are likely 17 to 24 years old and did everything they could to conceal their pregnancy.

The women likely acted strangely around the time they gave birth, authorities said.

"Three pregnancies. Three births. Three deaths. That sort of thing does not happen without somebody having some info," O'Malley said. "We will never, ever give up on this."

O'Malley said dozens of women have agreed to DNA testing over the years.

In the past month, he said, nine DNA tests have come back as a negative match. Two more women are waiting to be tested.

The first child - an infant girl - was found in 1999 wrapped in a towel in the harbor near Red Wing's Bay Point Park.

A baby boy was found in 2003 by a group of teenagers along the shoreline in Frontenac.

This year, two workers at Prairie Island marina discovered the body of a newborn girl floating near one of the marina's docks.

Albers said deputies are still deeply troubled by the discoveries.

"A lot of people need closure here. They need closure," the sheriff said of whomever is responsible. "This is the kind of thing that's going to haunt them. It's not going to go away."

Investigators who toiled over the discovery of the babies' bodies and have since retired still ask about the cases, Albers said.

Officers still on the job talk about the babies often - a testament, the sheriff said, to the toll the river mysteries have taken on his staff.

And hardly a week goes by without a community member quizzing Albers about the cases.

"It's on their minds," he said. "One was bad. Two is tragic. Three is just horrific."

O'Malley said the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and the sheriff's department will continue investigating all three cases.

He said authorities owe it to the babies to find who's responsible for their deaths.

"There's three children. They're gone forever. They're dead," O'Malley said. "These are human beings. We owe it to them to figure this out too and to prevent it.

"We cannot let this happen again."