With parents now named, mystery of dead Iowa baby found in 1996 now asks: Why?

Nearly 30 years after a farmer near Lisbon discovered a dead infant in his barn — puzzling law enforcement for decades in trying to figure out who the newborn was and how she got there — new genealogical tests reveal the baby was his great granddaughter.

Cedar County Sheriff Warren Wethington told The Gazette on Monday that his office and the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation have been working on the 1996 cold case for two years after receiving genetic genealogy results that identified the parents — who were both teens at the time.

Clair Wilson lived on the farm with his son, Tim; Tim’s wife, Debbie; and their son, Luke. who was 15 at the time. Clair Wilson found the infant, wrapped in a plastic shopping bag and concealed in a garbage bag, the morning of Nov. 10, 1996, in the barn at 14 Highway 30, about a mile east of Lisbon. The barn was used to store machinery.

The DCI issued a news release Saturday that, after all these years, finally revealed the parents’ identities: Luke Dean Wilson and Samantha Light Hope. He was 15 and she was 16 at the time, and both are now 43.

The DCI asked people who had information about the case to come forward and call the Cedar County Sheriff’s Office at (563) 886-2121

“Right now we are having trouble proving if the child was born alive or not,” Wethington said.

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An autopsy at the time concluded that the baby was alive when she was born. But that method now is not considered reliable. Officials are now trying to determine whether the baby was born dead or was abandoned live and died of exposure.

“I’m hoping it didn’t happen that way,” Wethington said. “I hoped it was just two kids who were scared and didn’t know what to do.”

Luke Wilson, who still lives in the area, has cooperated with authorities, Wethington said. But Light Hope, who lives out of state, hasn’t been cooperative, he said.

Attempts Monday by The Gazette to reach the two were unsuccessful.

As part of a cold case grant received in 2010, DNA testing was conducted an a sample from the baby and a genealogist with a DNA analysis company helped investigators create family trees to narrow down the possible parents, Wethington said. Luke Wilson provided a DNA sample, but in order to match Light Hope, investigators had to use DNA from a sibling.

Wethington said if the teens would have come forward at the time, the mystery wouldn’t have affected so many lives. “Hopefully, now the baby will be given a (proper) name,” he said.

Since shortly after her tiny body was discovered, the girl was known only as “Baby Jane Lincoln,” since the barn she was found in was located on old Lincoln Highway.

The infant was buried near Tipton, and the former sheriff took up a collection for a headstone.

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That sheriff, Keith Whitlatch, said Monday that investigators didn’t have any suspects when the baby was found, but suspected she might have been left by someone from out of town who was passing through.

Frank Heubner, who was the pastor of the Cedar Street Baptist Church in Tipton at the time the infant was found and officiated her funeral, said Monday he wanted the baby’s parents to know that God loves them as much as he loves their daughter.

“What would have been the circumstances that people would have been so desperate that they would have done something like that?” Heubner asked. “I think that was the real question that a lot of the people, at least in my church, had on their minds. There are resources and there are places people could go.”

Heubner didn’t know the Wilson family, but was asked to the perform the funeral by the director of the funeral home, who he was good friends with.

“It was just a complete shock and a complete mystery. … Nothing was ever made public as far as what they suspected,” Heubner said.

Emily Andersen of The Gazette contributed to this report.

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