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Police reach millions, field hundreds of tips in identity search for ‘Baby Doe’ – Metro US

Police reach millions, field hundreds of tips in identity search for ‘Baby Doe’

Police reach millions, field hundreds of tips in identity search for ‘Baby
Massachusetts State Police

A plea for help from State Police reached millions this weekend as investigators sought to identify a young girl, whose body was found on the shore of Deer Island two weeks ago.

“Help us speak for this child,” reads the flier, posted July 2 to the State Police Facebook page, which includes a computer-generated composite image of what the girl might have looked like, created by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

The girl, who investigators for now are calling “Baby Doe,” is described as being 4 years old, white or Hispanic with brown eyes and brown hair, about 3 ½ feet tall and weighing 30 pounds. When her body was found June 25, she was wearing a pair of white-and-black polka-dotted leggings and a zebra-stripe blanket, police said.

Hundreds have called in with tips to identify the child, said Jake Wark, press secretary for the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office. Police conducted well-being checks at homes over the past several days, he said, but in all cases have found the children in question “safe and sound.”

Investigators are confident the girl is not Aliayah Lunsford, a child who went missing in West Virginia in 2011, according to the State Police Facebook post. A number of callers have suggested the connection, police said.

With help from widespread attention online, the search will continue this week.

“Through news coverage and social media, it’s possible to reach many more people much more rapidly than ever before,” Wark said. “We’re just very hopeful, and at this point confident, given the very heartfelt reception we’ve gotten from the public, that we will be able to identify this little girl.”

Who to call with any information about the missing toddler:

Massachusetts State Police (24-hour number): 508-820-2121

Suffolk County State Police Detective Unit: 617-727-8817

Winthrop Police: 617-539-5806