March 29, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

DNA tests identify woman as slain baby’s mom

AUGUSTA — Genetic tests have positively identified a Saco woman as the mother of a baby girl she is accused of murdering.

The state Medical Examiner’s Office said DNA tests confirm that Jody L. Johnson, 38, is the mother of a newborn girl who was thrown away in a garbage bag last summer.

This is the first time authorities in Maine have used DNA to identify a body.

Johnson, who lives two miles from where the body was found, has pleaded innocent to a murder charge and is free on bail. State Chief Medical Examiner Henry Ryan said the 2-day-old baby had been strangled. An adult’s sock was found tied around the infant’s neck.

DNA tests usually are used only to link a victim with an assailant. In this case, the DNA tests conducted at the state police crime lab in Augusta used a blood sample from Johnson and a piece of bone from the baby’s body.

Johnson was arrested July 3, three days after a cable television worker found the infant’s body in a white plastic trash bag.

Investigators linked Johnson to the crime through household trash also left in the bag. Johnson’s boyfriend, Paul J. Martel, told police he dumped the bag after Johnson told him it contained spoiled food she had left in her car trunk.

Johnson’s friends, neighbors and Martel have said they did not know Johnson was pregnant. They said she wore baggy clothes that concealed her figure.

The baby’s remains had not been claimed as of Monday, the medical examiner’s office said.


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