10ofRods
Verified Anthropologist
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There aren't many ways to procure a placenta, though. Every cell in the placenta would indicate that it's a placenta cell (unless the lab is completely incompetent, which I highly doubt).I thought that too, but now they seem to be saying that they never established the sex of the baby, so perhaps those samples weren't usable, either because of what portion of the tissue was sampled (only the chorionic side has the baby's DNA) or because of damage from the intensely high temperature of the car fire, etc. I don't think it automatically goes without saying that they will have a usable DNA sample for the baby, or indeed that they have solid DNA evidence that the blood or placenta is CM's. The conclusion that the material belonged to CM and her presumed baby was probably arrived at in conjunction with the CCTV identification and some kind of administrative paper trail too.
I'm not saying that a flat denial that there was ever a baby would be plausible to my mind, but legally it might have mileage, depending on what samples were taken and how degraded they were or weren't.
JMO
Usable DNA? Maybe not. But where there's a placenta, there's a woman whose body produced it.
Besides, wasn't the baby actually seen? I'm confused.