Mom implicated in Maine’s 1985 ‘Baby Jane Doe’ cold case gets 6 years

A Massachusetts woman who abandoned her newborn daughter to die in a gravel pit in northern Maine on a cold winter day in 1985 has been sentenced to six years in prison.

Lee Ann Daigle, of Lowell, Massachusetts, pleaded guilty to manslaughter after DNA evidence helped police solve the decades-old crime. The baby’s body was discovered after a dog found it in the gravel pit and took it to a family’s front lawn in Frenchville.

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Daigle gave a tearful apology in court on Tuesday, saying she panicked instead of seeking help.

“I could’ve done more. I should’ve done more,” she told the judge.

Her name was Lee Ann Guerrette when police were alerted to the grisly discovery on Dec. 7, 1985. Detectives tracked the dog’s path to the gravel pit where the baby had been born and abandoned in sub-zero temperatures.

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The death of Baby Jane Doe went unsolved for years until a DNA match provided a break in the case, leading to Daigle’s indictment last year. In the intervening years, Daigle had raised two daughters, both of whom testified at her sentencing.

She was originally charged with depraved indifference murder, but she pleaded guilty to manslaughter. The judge sentenced her to 16 years in prison but suspended most of the sentence.