Woman’s At-Home DNA Test Leads to Arrest of Own Grandma for 1997 Newborn Death
A routine DNA test kit given as a Christmas present unexpectedly connected a Michigan flower shop worker to one of her small town’s most haunting cold cases.
The test shockingly led to the arrest of her grandmother in a 25-year-old infant death investigation.
Jenna Gerwatowski, 23, was working at her local flower shop in Newberry, Michigan, when she received a life-changing call from a state police detective in May 2022.
The call revealed her DNA matched that of an infant found deceased in a campground toilet in 1997 – a case that had baffled investigators for decades.
It was reported that the connection emerged after Gerwatowski took a FamilyTreeDNA test, following a friend’s Christmas gift of a similar kit.
Investigators, who had reopened the cold case in 2017, had extracted DNA from Baby Garnet’s partial femur and worked with Identifinders International, a genetic genealogy firm, to trace potential relatives.
Initially skeptical of the detective’s call, Gerwatowski and her mother Kara suspected a potential scam, especially after recent fraudulent activities targeting family members.
Their suspicions intensified when Misty Gillis, a senior forensic genealogist, requested access to Gerwatowski’s DNA account password.
The reality of the situation became clear during an emergency family meeting, where Gerwatowski’s cousin, a victim’s advocate at the county prosecutor’s office, confirmed the investigation’s legitimacy.
CNN highlighted that the DNA analysis revealed Gerwatowski was Baby Garnet’s half-niece, and her mother Kara was the infant’s half-sister.
The trail led investigators to Nancy Gerwatowski, Kara’s estranged mother, who was living in Wyoming.
The Michigan attorney general’s office alleges Nancy delivered the newborn alone at home, resulting in the infant’s death from asphyxiation – a death they claim could have been prevented with medical intervention.
CNN reported that Nancy’s defense team presents a different narrative, describing a traumatic emergency delivery in a bathtub where the fetus became trapped in the birth canal.
They argue she lost consciousness during the delivery and, upon regaining consciousness, found the fetus deceased.
Her attorneys maintain she had no access to emergency services in 1997 and acted while in shock when disposing of the remains.
The accused grandmother faces charges of open murder, involuntary manslaughter, and concealing a death, with open murder carrying a potential life sentence.
Judge Brian D. Rahilly is expected to decide on whether to proceed with the charges by year’s end, per multiple outlets.
She took a DNA test for fun. Police used it to charge her grandmother with murder in a cold case | Click on the image to read the full story https://t.co/gSKggQ4gkO
— WESH 2 News (@WESH) December 12, 2024
At the start of this year, the New York Post reported that the remains of a new dad killed at the World Trade Center on 9/11 were finally identified over two decades later thanks to groundbreaking DNA technology.
John Ballantine Niven, 44, of Oyster Bay, Long Island, was on the 105th floor of the South Tower when he was killed on that fateful Tuesday.
He left behind his wife and 18-month-old son.
His remains have been positively identified using breakthrough DNA sequencing technology, along with a mitochondrial DNA analysis and other procedures that have been refined since the 2001 terror attack, city officials announced.
“It certainly emotional for me to hear 23 years later that John’s DNA has been found [sic],” Niven’s widow told the Post. “We had no idea those efforts were still underway.”
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