"50-year rule" crucial in mysterious mummified baby case

[struggle4progress]

~snip~ The infant was found wrapped in a 1925 newspaper in the second-floor ceiling of the east-end home. ~snip~

"Generally in Ontario, the Office of the Chief Coroner has a rule of thumb that remains discovered, say 50 years after the death or more are not really of forensic interest," Dr. Scott Fairgrieve, chair of the Forensic Science Department at Laurentian University told CTV's Canada AM. ~snip~

"If this child happened to be an unwanted pregnancy and had gone to term, obviously and then the remains disposed of -- and if the mother of the child was 15 at the time -- consider that mother would now to be 97 years old," Faigrieve said. "If it was from in fact 1925, who do you prosecute? It's quite likely the parents of this child are dead themselves now."

The Canadian Press reports a land title search revealed the property was bought in 1919. Provincial documents reveal the male homeowner died in February 1939, while his wife appears to have lived at the house until 1941, when she was admitted to Toronto's Ontario Hospital as a patient. ~snip~

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070726/mummified_baby_070726/20070726?hub=TopStories