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Decades-old case of baby bones found in
trunk remains mystery in Strafford County
On April 6, 1983, Earl and Ruth Davis, of Somersworth, were cleaning out their basement and opened a steamer trunk left with them decades earlier by former neighbor Shirley Thomas. The General Electric employee had given the trunk to the couple in the late 1950s.
Investigators determined all the babies in the trunk had died between 1949 and 1952.
In the days following the gruesome discovery, Thomas told police about a “baby snuffing” ring “years ago” and that the person responsible for the infants' deaths had died. She shared no other information after being read her Miranda Rights.
Within a week, Thomas hired attorney Danford Wensley. Thomas was never arrested and took any information she had to the grave soon afterward.
Rod Doherty was the executive editor of Foster’s Daily Democrat newspaper in Dover at the time.
“Was it abortions? Did she kill them? Or did people come to her with babies they had killed?” Doherty said on Tuesday.
Somersworth Police Lt. Patrick Boyle worked on the case for two years. He connected Irene Copeland, who was found dead on Watson Road in Dover on May 16, 1950, to the baby bones case.
Copeland, a Somersworth District nurse who may have known too much about the black market for babies in the area, was found face-down. Even though it was determined by officials that Copeland had died accidentally from excess alcohol and some derivative of barbituric acid, her death has always been considered suspicious by people following the case.
trunk remains mystery in Strafford County
On April 6, 1983, Earl and Ruth Davis, of Somersworth, were cleaning out their basement and opened a steamer trunk left with them decades earlier by former neighbor Shirley Thomas. The General Electric employee had given the trunk to the couple in the late 1950s.
Investigators determined all the babies in the trunk had died between 1949 and 1952.
In the days following the gruesome discovery, Thomas told police about a “baby snuffing” ring “years ago” and that the person responsible for the infants' deaths had died. She shared no other information after being read her Miranda Rights.
Within a week, Thomas hired attorney Danford Wensley. Thomas was never arrested and took any information she had to the grave soon afterward.
Rod Doherty was the executive editor of Foster’s Daily Democrat newspaper in Dover at the time.
“Was it abortions? Did she kill them? Or did people come to her with babies they had killed?” Doherty said on Tuesday.
Somersworth Police Lt. Patrick Boyle worked on the case for two years. He connected Irene Copeland, who was found dead on Watson Road in Dover on May 16, 1950, to the baby bones case.
Copeland, a Somersworth District nurse who may have known too much about the black market for babies in the area, was found face-down. Even though it was determined by officials that Copeland had died accidentally from excess alcohol and some derivative of barbituric acid, her death has always been considered suspicious by people following the case.
