A couple has finally been arrested in connection with the thirty year old cold case where an infant’s remains were found in the trash.
On the morning of April 4, 1991, police in Nags Head, North Carolina were called to the 8600 block of East Tides Drive after receiving a report of human remains found in a rack that holds trash cans.
When officers arrived on the scene, they discovered the infant’s body, which had decomposed so badly that they were unable to establish its gender at the scene.
After the medical examiner performed the autopsy, the infant was identified as a boy who had died from blunt force trauma and asphyxiation.
Police Chief Phil Webster has announced that his investigators have finally broke the case, thanks to the tireless efforts of law enforcement officers over the years who never stopped searching for answers.
“Over the years, the detectives and the officers that I have never met and never knew continued to look at this case and didn’t let it die,” he said.
Despite not being able to solve the crime at the time, Nags Head Police never gave up, continuing to work on the unsolved case of “Baby Doe.”
In 2019, officers decided to send the infant’s rib bone to Othram, a private lab in Woodlands, Texas, hoping for some new answers.
Even though the evidence was decades old, Othram was able to recover human DNA from the bone. They then used that material to conduct a genealogical profile, which eventually led Nags Head police to a family in Taylorsville, North Carolina.
“We needed to find closure for this community, for the department, for the family of the baby,” Chief Webster said.
Further investigation led to the arrests of Scott Gordon Poole, 54, and his wife, Robyn Lynn Byrum, 51, on October 21st, 2021. The couple have been charged with concealing the birth of a child, a Class I felony. According to police, additional charges may be pending.
Bond for Poole and Byrum was set at $250,000 for both, and they have since been transferred to the Dare County Detention Center.