ROSEVILLE, Mich. – Police are working to determine if the body of a newborn baby that was found at a recycling center in Roseville is the same as a child who has been reported missing from an area closer to the center of the state.
Police said the newborn was found about 11 p.m. Wednesday by workers who were sorting recyclables at the RE Community Recycling on Groesbeck.
There were no visible signs of trauma, but an autopsy will be done to determine a cause of death.
Police are investigating whether the newborn is connected to a case involving a 25-year-old Okemos woman who is charged with murder in the 2013 death of her baby girl.
Melissa Mitin gave birth to a boy in December 2014, but Ingham County Assistant Prosecutor Debra Rousseau said Mitin told an Ingham County family court judge that she "could not recall" where the baby boy is.
Circuit Judge Jim Jamo ordered Mitin held without bond at the Ingham County Jail. She had been free on $5,000 bond while she awaited trial in the 2013 death.
Mitin's lawyer Frank Reynolds said he has "serious concerns about her psychological well-being" following the remarks about the newborn. Jamo has granted a request by Reynolds for competency tests, the Lansing State Journal reported.
Mitin, who had been living with her parents in the Lansing area, was examined at a doctor's office in mid-December, and it was determined she was 35 weeks pregnant, Rousseau said. An examination Tuesday showed she had given birth about three weeks ago.
Meridian Township police are working to help locate the baby.
Mitin was charged last year in the Dec. 26, 2013, death of her daughter. According to testimony in the case, she concealed the pregnancy, gave birth in a bathroom and put the infant face down in a wastebasket. The umbilical cord and placenta were still attached.
Mitin told police that after giving birth, the baby cried but then stopped breathing.