Mother of unidentified newborn nicknamed ‘Baby June’ is arrested after DNA helps crack cold case

A newborn baby found dead and floating in the ocean off the Florida coast in 2018 was killed by its mother, who has now been arrested, police said.

The mysterious four-and-a-half-year-old case of ‘Baby June’, which police say was ‘dismissed as a piece of trash’, had gone cold, with no fruitful leads. The young woman has never been identified.

But on Thursday, Palm Beach County police said they arrested the girl’s mother using the same genetic genealogy technique that found the “Golden State Killer” in California, who pleaded guilty in 2020 to multiple murders in the decades of the 1970s and 1980s.

The technology allowed investigators to identify the girl’s father, who in turn led them to his ex-girlfriend, Arya Singh, 29. She was arrested Thursday and will be charged with the murder of her young daughter.

“Four years ago I stood in front of these very cameras and asked for the public’s support in trying to find out what happened and who this unidentified child was,” said Palm Beach County Special Investigations Unit Capt. Steven Strivelli, at a press conference. Thursday. “I am very, very happy to announce that today we have all those questions answered.”

The infant’s tiny body was seen floating in the water by an off-duty firefighter on June 1, 2018, about 100 feet from the Boynton Beach Inlet. Police at the time said the firefighter initially mistook the girl for a doll.

Having been found that month, the girl was nicknamed ‘Baby June’, and investigators released an artist-rendered image of what the baby might have looked like at birth, in the hope that someone might provide a clue.

A $10,000 reward was offered for any information leading to an arrest in the case, but none of the tips police received were helpful, Strivelli said.

Meanwhile, he said investigators searched the records of all children born in Palm Beach and Broward counties, but were unable to find any information that would help the case.

Eventually, Strivelli said the case was turned over to the cold-case squad.

“We were starting to look like we were heading to a dead end,” Strivelli told reporters. However, the crime lab and cold case team were eventually able to identify the girl’s father through a DNA match.

The technology allowed investigators to identify the girl’s father, who in turn led them to his ex-girlfriend, 29-year-old Arya Singh (pictured). She was arrested Thursday and will be charged with the murder of her young daughter.

Julie Sikorsky, supervisor of the office’s forensic biology unit, said the sheriff’s office uploaded the newborn’s DNA to a public database, FamilyTreeDNA, and was able to find a close relative.

“We reconstructed the family tree and identified close relatives, and then made the link to our suspect today,” Sikorsky told reporters during the news conference.

Investigators were finally able to find the possible father of the newborn, whom they confirmed through DNA testing.

Detective Brittany Christoffel with the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office said the father told investigators he had a girlfriend at the time. She had told him that she was pregnant, but that she “had taken care of it,” the detective said. “He didn’t know anything about this baby,” Christoffel said. She was thinking that maybe she miscarried.

Detectives were able to obtain a “cover DNA sample” from the father’s ex-girlfriend, a piece of trash she had discarded, and were able to use this to confirm that she was the mother of the newborn baby, Christoffel told reporters.

Police learned that Singh had been at the entrance on May 30, 2018, 48 hours before the baby was found in nearby water. They also found that the mother had searched and read news articles about the baby’s discovery.

Despite this, “it has never come forward in all this time,” Christoffel said.

The detective said the baby was already dead when he walked into the driveway. Singh told investigators that she did not know she was pregnant until she gave birth on May 30, 2018, and that she was not sure if the baby was dead or alive at that time.

Christoffel said his investigators had interviewed Singh, as well as several of her friends and family, and determined that the mother was “only responsible for the baby ending up in Boynton Beach Inlet.”

Palm Beach County Special Investigations Unit Captain Steven Strivelli speaks during a news conference where the officer announced the mother had been arrested.

The newborn girl was found 100 feet off the Boynton Beach shoreline by a local firefighter. Pictured: An aerial shot of the area where ‘Baby June’ was found in 2018

The Florida state’s attorney for Palm Beach County said Singh was taken into custody Thursday and will be charged with first-degree murder.

It was not immediately clear if Singh had a lawyer of his own.

The sheriff’s office said this cold case was the first time it had used investigative genetic genealogy and would do so again.

This is believed to be the first time the technology has been used in Florida.

“It’s a whole new world when it comes to technology,” Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said at the news conference. “A lot of people at the beginning were like, ‘You don’t have anything, you’ll be lucky if you ever find someone in this.'”

Bradshaw praised his officers, saying that while they are tough, this particular case had affected all of them emotionally.

“Law enforcement men and women always think they’re tough and they’ve seen it all, but I guarantee when you see a newborn baby floating in the ocean like someone just discarded it like a piece of trash, you touches the heart.” he said.