This is probably the worst story you’ll hear today though at least some measure of justice was eventually handed out. The story began in 1997 when a woman walked into a Chevron gas station and headed directly for the bathroom. Fifteen minutes later she walked out. Later someone cleaning the bathroom found a dead infant in the trash can. He became known as Baby Boy Doe.

Investigators said gas station staff found the child inside a trash bin and called police. Detectives were not sure if the child was born alive, but the King County Medical Examiner later determined that the child had been born alive. SPD detectives then began investigating the case as a homicide.

Gas station surveillance footage shows the woman entering the store on Nov. 20. Investigators obtained DNA evidence at the scene and worked with the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab’s database to find a match. Police throughout the years received leads but were unable to identify the woman.

The photo above comes from the gas station surveillance footage. In early 1998, about two months after the body was discovered, the detective working the case held a funeral for the boy. About 50 strangers who’d heard about the story turned up to pay their respects but despite the media attention no one ever identified the suspect.

In 2018 the cold case was reexamined using genetic genealogy techniques. The DNA from the baby was submitted to a public DNA database and a partial match was discovered. Detectives followed the family tree and settled on a suspect named Christine Warren but they had no DNA for direct comparison. That’s when they came up with a novel idea.

“In November 2020, detectives sent a mailing to Warren which included a gift card and an invitation to participate in a flavored-water beverage survey for a fictional product, Sparkling Icy,” Norton wrote. “Warren responded to the survey and returned her response in a provided envelope which was sent to a P.O. Box rented by detectives.”

The envelope contained a signed survey, and the signature matched the one on Warren’s Washington driver’s license.

The envelope also contained a treasure trove of DNA, which Warren left behind as she licked the envelope and the stamp used to mail in the survey.

On New Year’s Eve, the state crime lab determined that the profile on the envelope matched that of Baby Boy Doe’s mother.

Police confronted Warren with the results and she allegedly confessed to the crime and to tossing her son in the trash.

“Warren stated that on the night of Baby Doe’s birth, she was riding in a friend’s car and started experiencing cramps,” the affidavit states. “She asked her friend to stop at the gas station. Warren said that she went inside and delivered the child in the restroom.”

Warren told detectives that the baby “dropped into the toilet,” where she left him for several minutes. She was unsure if he was alive when she “panicked” and stuffed him into the trash can, covering his body with trash.

Warren was initially charged with 2nd degree murder last March. This week she was convicted of the lesser charge of first-degree manslaughter and sentenced to five years of community custody.

The woman, now 52, was sentenced to first-degree manslaughter, which ordinarily has a prison time of up to 8.5 years. A Superior Court Judge noted several unfortunate circumstances that contributed to the comparatively minor sentence she received—the woman suffered a traumatic upbringing, had no criminal history for several years, and had been making progress in therapy. Given these factors, the judge determined she was unlikely to commit future crimes.

Her sentence also came with the condition she continues mental health counseling and therapy.

“To the question of how do you explain this resolution or where we are today, to a parent — you can’t,” Detective Norton said. “And I don’t think we could have come up with any resolution today that you could offer to a parent and have it make sense. … And for me, I think for a lot of people, today is not about punishment. Today is about accountability. We needed to get to today and it took a long time. And we got here, but no one is happy. There’s no happy angle. There’s no happy edge. We have to recognize that, feel it, and I guess go back to work.”

I agree there’s no sentence that would make sense of this crime but five years community custody apparently means she won’t serve any time in a prison at all. That seems pretty generous for someone who killed a helpless child.