Man Discovers Baby’s Corpse Believed to Be His Sister in Family Freezer

A Missouri man discovered a baby’s mummified corpse of what he believes was his older sister after cleaning out his late mother’s freezer on Sunday.

Adam Smith, 37, opened up a box within the freezer thinking it was a decades-old wedding cake when he found a frozen corpse wrapped in pink fleece, believed to be his older sister who died before he was born.

“We’re saying 46 or 47 [years] — that’s how long. I’m assuming it is my sister, been in a box in a freezer for this long,” Smith told KSDK.

“I’m 37…and I was always told it was a wedding cake top. It turns out it was a baby.”

Smith said his mother Barbara— who passed away at 68 on July 21— avoided talking about the box within the freezer for decades, even when she moved apartments in St. Louis and after she was diagnosed with cancer.

When Smith finally investigated the box after his mother’s passing, he discovered the baby’s corpse.

The box was hidden behind a frozen Banquet Salisbury steak deep dish pie and wrapped in white plastic.

“It still had skin, hair, and everything; it was mummified,” he said. “After that, I freaked out, put it in the box and called police right away.”

Police arrived at his apartment where he had lived with his late mother around 1 a.m. Sunday. Smith had lived at the apartment while she had been battling breast cancer.

“The head homicide guy was stumped,” Smith told KMOV. “He literally looked at me and said, ‘This is a good one.'”

Smith said his mother Barbara mentioned to him that a sibling of his passed away before he was born, but relatives recently told him she had twins— one who passed away and another that was put up for adoption.

The 37-year-old told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch his mother would disappear for months at a time and kept many secrets.

The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department said in a statement the investigation is ongoing and active, calling the find a “suspicious death.”