Dead Baby Found in Dumpster

ROCKY MOUNT, N.C. — Police are investigating the discovery of an infant's body in a supermarket trash bin.

An employee of the Food Lion in the River's Edge Shopping Center on U.S. Highway 301 called police at about 1 p.m. Wednesday to report that the body of a dead newborn had been found.

Someone digging in the Dumpsters behind the Food Lion made the discovery, Rocky Mount Police Chief John Manley said. The baby was wrapped in something, Manley said, declining to elaborate.

The race and gender of the baby haven't been determined. The body has been sent to the medical examiner to determine its race and gender and to find the cause of death, Manley said.

Food Lion employees declined to comment on the case, saying only that they are cooperating with police in the investigation.

The find marked the second dead infant discovered in the past day in the region.

On Tuesday, a baby boy was found wrapped in a blanket outside an abandoned house in Warsaw. Two people scouting real estate found the body on the back steps of the house, police said.

The Rocky Mount case is also the third newborn abandoned in that area in a little more than a year.

A year ago Tuesday, a man found a newborn boy in the back of a pickup truck. The baby survived.

In November 2005, a woman discovered a baby girl on a church doorstep in Tarboro. She was adopted last October.

North Carolina allows new mothers to leave a newborn at a hospital, police or fire station without penalty as long as the baby is no more than 7 days old. Thirty-four other states have such Safe Surrender laws.