The call was so frantic that florist Jenna Gerwatowski, in her early 20s, thought the logical thing: that it was a joke. Worse, it’s a scam. After all, on the other end of the phone was a man who 1) claimed to be a Michigan State Police detective, 2) was investigating a murder that allegedly occurred years before Jenna was born, and 3) somehow informed her that DNA was involved.

Crazy.

To understand such confusion, we need to go back. end of 2001That’s when a friend of Jenna Gerwatowski told her she was taking a test at FamilyTreeDNA, a Texas company that does DNA analysis primarily for genealogical purposes. It may seem strange, but it was Christmas and FamilyTreeDNA was (and still is now) advertising their service as an original gift that would allow people to research their own ancestors.

Jenna must have thought this was funny because she impersonated her colleague and took her own DNA test. This didn’t do him much good. Or at least that seemed to be the case for the next six months; During this time, the young woman’s life was like that of any other twenty-something girl from rural Michigan. But in May 2022, she received the kind of call from her florist that she only expected to see on the show. true crime From Netflix.

It’s been more than two years, but we know this because Jenna just explained it in great detail to CNN reporters.

“Have you heard of the Baby Garnet case?”

View of Garnet Lake.

The person who called him was a detective, a Michigan State Police agent, and after being introduced, he asked her a question that stopped her dead: “Did you hear about that?” baby garnet case“?” “Yes,” he replied. After all, everyone in his town knew the story of ‘Baby Garnet’, one of the unsolved mysteries that color local black chronicles.

In 1997, police officers found the body of an abandoned baby in the bathrooms at Garnet Lake Campground, just a half-hour drive from downtown Newberry. The Mackinac County Sheriff’s Office and Michigan State Police worked on the case for several months in the summer and fall of 1997, but to no avail.

Not a witness. There is no trace. They learned that the body belonged to a baby in advanced gestation, only between 36 and 42 weeks. He was nicknamed ‘Baby Garnet’ in the area. And his story became a seemingly unsolvable mystery about which there is not a single clue.

At least until Jenna takes the infamous test to research her family tree. “Your DNA matches”the police officer shouted from the other end of the phone line. As confusing as it sounds, especially considering Jenna didn’t exist in 1997, this means the young woman is related to the baby.

The real question was: What kind of relationship did Jenna have with the baby who died four years before she was born? How was the connection explained? And, above all, would it allow agents to solve a case that had gone a quarter-century without progress and was reopened in 2017 in the hope that genealogy tracking, skeletal remains and DNA would shed some light?

“This was crazy”

The story Jenna shared with CNN gets more fascinating as it progresses. When the young woman arrived home, she told her mother, Kara Gerwatowski, what had happened, and they began to consider all possible options.

If all this is true, whose baby was it? What if the DNA test actually reveals a distant relationship, a connection to a distant cousin they don’t know? Worse yet, what if the phone Jenna received was a new, twisted kind of phone? phone scam Did you plan to get money from him?

As time passed, the last option, the fraud attempt, began to grow in Jenna’s mind. He refused to provide the FamilyTreeDNA password to upload his data to an independent database, allegedly stopped cooperating with the researchers, and even cut off communication with them. Or at least that was the case until I received another call a short time later while I was at the flower shop.

When he answered the phone, he found an uneasy but familiar voice, his mother’s voice.

– I want you to come home. It’s an emergency.

This marked the second plot point in the story. Her mother was upset because Jenna’s cousin, an official from the district attorney’s office, had visited her to confirm to both of them that the police had indeed found some sort of connection between the young woman and “Baby Garnet.” From there the case progressed rapidly. Jenna provided a DNA sample. His mother Kara handed out another one. And between the two, as the young woman put it, “the pieces of the puzzle fit together.”

If reps appreciated a link, it was because there was a link.

The baby found dead in the bathrooms of a remote Michigan campground in 1997 was the step-uncle and half-brother of Jenna and Kara, respectively. Eyes then focused on the story’s other protagonist: Jenna’s grandmother, Nancy Gerwatowski, now nearly 60, with whom Kara had broken off relations decades ago. What’s more, Jenna revealed to CNN that she didn’t even know him.

The next chapter in the crazy story of ‘Baby Garnet’ and DNA hybridization came a few months ago, in May, when the Michigan Attorney General’s Office issued a statement announcing that Jenna’s grandmother would be in the dock. an unsolved crime 27 years. Woman, involuntary manslaughter, hiding a death and “clear murder”a category that includes first- and second-degree murder. This charge alone could lead to a life sentence.

Authorities believe Nancy gave birth alone at her Newberry home in 1997 and that the baby died of asphyxiation; They believe this condition can be prevented if the woman receives medical help. They also accuse him of hiding the body in the toilet of a campsite more than 30 kilometers away.

A hearing was held on Thursday regarding these accusations, and at this hearing, the defendant’s lawyers put forward a completely different version of the accusations. According to them, Nancy gave birth in the bathtub at home before she had time to go to the hospital, and the birth was so complicated that the baby drowned and the mother fell unconscious.

They claim he didn’t call for help because, like many of his neighbors, Nancy had died 27 years ago. I didn’t have my own phone nor access to one. Advocates for leaving the child at the campsite cite the shock the child experiences after birth.

There’s still the question of whether judges will lean on her story or the police’s conclusions, but at least the mystery of ‘Baby Garnet’ has been solved after more than 25 years.

And it’s all because of a DNA test and a joke between friends.

Pictures | Bogdan Arhipov (Unsplash) and National Cancer Institute (Unsplash)

via | cnn

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