Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The (GA)

September 29, 2004
Section: Metro News
Edition: Home; The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Page: B1

Workers find body of baby in southeast Atlanta
   SAEED AHMED

Staff

Anthony Bolton, a city of Atlanta sewer worker, was out surveying a road in southeast Atlanta late Tuesday morning when his co-worker called out to him from nearby woods.

"I think there's something dead here that you ought to see," the co-worker yelled.

"What do you mean? Like an animal?" Bolton asked.

"No, I think a baby," he replied.

It was one of those times, Bolton said, that you hope you're wrong about what you're seeing.

It was a baby boy, whose decomposed body made it difficult to even make out his race.

Atlanta police would later say that the infant was believed to be between a month and several months old when he died, and called the death "disturbing and suspicious."

The two city workers discovered the body on Grange Drive in the Thomasville Heights neighborhood about 11:30 a.m.

He was hidden behind a tree, about 10 feet from the road. He lay without clothes -- "not even a diaper, nothing," Bolton said -- next to three old tires.

"It looked like an old faded cabbage patch doll that someone had thrown on the side of the road -- like a crumpled can of Sprite," Bolton said, his voice shaking with anger.

The infant was taken to the Fulton Medical Examiner's office, where an autopsy will be performed today, said Investigator Betty Honey.

Police Sgt. John Quigley said that once investigators can narrow down the date of the baby's birth, they can start looking at hospitals for women who delivered in that time period.

A father himself, the discovery hit Bolton, 20, hard. He rushed home to his two children, ages 5 and 1, and fixed them a special meal of ribs, pork chops and chicken.

"I picked them up, gave them really big hugs and told them Daddy will never hurt you," Bolton said, "Never."

Copyright 2004 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

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