Infant discovered dead in drainage ditch

Law enforcement officials check a drainage ditch where an infant's body was discovered Monday morning. The site is behind Tree Top Apartment complex off U.S. Highway 280.

By: | Opelika Auburn News
Published: February 04, 2008

A 3-year-old boy could be seen Monday running his fingers along the length of yellow caution tape that stretched across his building at Tree Top Apartment Complex where an infant was found dead in the drainage ditch there.

Residents of Tree Top said they saw an ambulance roll in around 8:30 a.m. Opelika police Capt. Allan Elkins said they got the call at 9:04 a.m., and Lee County Coroner Bill Harris said he got the call at 9:26 a.m. and was on the scene at 9:40 a.m. Harris pronounced the infant dead at the scene five minutes later. Residents say the on-site maintenance man found the infant in the rain drainage ditch and immediately yelled out that someone needed to call 9-1-1.

“We’ve got a lot of investigation to do,” said Harris as he stood outside building 200 of Tree Top. “The Department of Forensic Sciences will collect the evidence and go from there.”

In the 22 years that Elkins has been on the force, he said the Monday morning scene was a first.

“I can’t remember anything like this,” Elkins said.

With media staked out at the scene, constant Birmingham Highway traffic flow and curious residents milling around, local investigators and officials from the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences held up a white sheet that hid the unthinkable.

“The infant was found wrapped in some type of fabric,” Elkins said.

He said forensics will determine the gender and age of the infant.

“Whoever did this should go straight to prison,” 1-year resident Shaun Bowser said. “They should not get a trial or anything. They should go straight to prison.”

As Bowser held his 8-month-old daughter close, he just shook his head and said it didn’t make any sense.

Just last summer, Randall Kardoes was found shot at Tree Top. Police arrested Kiley Jackson in connection with the shooting death, Elkins said.

Resident Valeria Baker, the mother of three, could be seen standing outside her residence watching officials secure the front yard where normally she said children play.

“It’s a sad day,” Baker said.

The case remains under investigation by the Opelika Police Department, the Lee County Coroner’s Office and the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences.