Woman charged with abandoning newborn girl in New Jersey park nearly 40 years ago

MORRISTOWN, N.J. (AP) — The mother of a newborn girl whose body was found in a New Jersey park on Christmas Eve nearly 40 years ago has been identified and is now charged in the death. The infant, dubbed “Baby Mary,” was found by two young boys in a secluded park in Mendham Township in 1984. Morris County Prosecutor Robert Carrol said Thursday that the child’s umbilical cord was still attached when she was found and she was alive when she was abandoned. The woman, who was 17 at the time, was arrested in South Carolina on April 24 and charged as a juvenile with manslaughter. Authorities say the child’s father was unaware the baby had been born and he was not involved in her death. He died in 2009.