DNA evidence led authorities to find the mother of a baby who was left abandoned in a cooler for days last year before it was discovered by a passerby.
19-year-old Caroline Riley Propes was identified as the mother of a deceased baby girl who was found inside a blue cooler with watermelon prints sitting by Boy Scout Road. Witnessed said that the cooler was there for nearly a week before it was reported to police on January 6, 2019.
The autopsy results only showed that the baby was full-term and had no signs of trauma but her cause of death remains unclear. Propes was charged with second-degree murder: “There is no excuse why they disposed of it like it was, or why they disposed of the child like they did,” Sgt. Stewart Smith had previously said.
