Man finds 'mummified' baby in dead mother's freezer

Adam Smith discovered infant's remains in box which mother had kept alongside frozen food for four decades

A man found a “mummified” baby in his mother’s freezer while cleaning out her flat following her death.

Adam Smith, from St Louis, Missouri, said he was “confused” and “angry” after discovering the girl’s remains, which he believes could be a sister he never knew he had.

The infant’s corpse was wrapped in a pink blanket in a cardboard box which Mr Smith, 37, said his mother had kept alongside food in the freezer his whole life.

“It still had skin, hair and everything,” he told local television station KSDK. “It was mummified.”

Mr Smith said his mother Barbara had always maintained the box contained part of her wedding cake. But she had been secretive about it, with the box considered “a no-no conversation”.

“Now I know why,” he told the St Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper.

Mr Smith said he had never before looked inside the box, but curiosity got the better him as he sorted out his mother’s belongings after the 68-year-old died of lung cancer on 21 July.

After taking the box out from behind a frozen steak pie and opening it up, he felt a foot and saw the baby’s head.

“After that, I just freaked out,” he told KSDK. “I put it back into the box and I called police right away.”

Officers arrived at the flat shortly before 1am on Sunday.

The St Louis Metropolitan Police Department is treating the case as “suspicious death” and an autopsy is to be conducted.

Mr Smith, who has provided a DNA sample to the police, said he had been consumed with questions about the baby and why his mother kept it secret.

“I’m 37, and it has been in my freezer for 37 years and I was always told it was a wedding cake top,” he said.

“Even as she was on her deathbed, she never told me what was in that box,” he told the Post-Dispatch. “That’s what makes me think maybe she did something to this baby and didn’t want to tell anyone because she was afraid she would get in trouble.”

Mr Smith added it had also dawned on him that for his “whole life” he had eaten food from a freezer that may also have contained his “frozen sister”.

“Who absolutely keeps their own child in a box for this long?” he told St Louis television station KTVI. “I just have so many thoughts. It’s just insane.”