WINONA, Minn. — The biological mother of a dead newborn found floating on the Mississippi River in 2011 is facing criminal charges.

Jennifer Nichole Baechle, 43, is facing two counts of second-degree manslaughter for allegedly placing her newborn in a white tote bag and sending it down the Mississippi River in 2011.

The charges, which were filed in Winona County District Court on Thursday, revealed that law enforcement connected her DNA to the DNA samples collected from the objects found inside the bag.

The newborn was found concealed in a white tote bag on the Minnesota side of the Mississippi River on Sept. 5, 2011, by boaters. The 7-pound baby was found swaddled under a green T-shirt inside two plastic bags that also contained four small porcelain angels, a seeing eye bracelet and incense.

The infant became known as “Baby Angel” in the Winona community.

Jennifer Nichole Baechle. (Courtesy of Winona County Sheriff’s Office via Forum News Service)

Six months after the discovery of the infant, more than 150 residents honored the newborn in Winona’s St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. Baby Angel was laid to rest at Woodlawn Cemetery, where her gravestone stands today. A community-wide effort in Winona funded the grave marker, and members of the sheriff’s office often replace the flowers near her grave.

Nearly a decade after the infant’s death, Winona County deputies sought the assistance of a forensics genealogy company that has a history of helping law enforcement identify unidentified human remains. When Baby Angel was initially discovered, forensic genealogy was not well known. Law enforcement attempted to follow leads connected to the figurines found in the bag with the newborn, but none led to finding Baby Angel’s parents.

Firebird Forensics Group provided the Winona County Sheriff’s Office with a possible lead to a 41-year-old woman living in Winona in March 2023, the Post Bulletin previously reported. Deputies searched the woman’s trash. According to the Minnesota BCA test, a DNA sample from the trash shows the woman is a possible biological match with a blood sample taken from the infant.

In a search warrant filed in March 2024 , investigators narrowed their search for the identity of the baby’s mother. The sheriff’s office was using the warrant to ask for permission to obtain a DNA sample directly from Baby Angel’s suspected mother.

Deputies submitted Baechle’s DNA for testing around March 19, 2024. The results indicated there was strong evidence to support the biological relationship between Baechle and the newborn, the criminal complaint said.

After receiving the DNA test results, the sheriff’s office spoke with members of Baechle’s family, who told law enforcement they did not have personal contact with Baechle in 2011. When deputies showed photos of the items found with the newborn in the white tote bag, Baechle’s family members “immediately recognized” the blue pendant. According to the complaint, her family members also said Baechle was gifted an angel ornament every Christmas. Baechle collected the angel ornaments.

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) concluded on March 17, 2025, that the DNA on the incense stick matches in the bag matched the DNA of Baechle.

Her first appearance is scheduled for later Thursday, April 24.

A press conference is scheduled for 12:30 p.m. in Winona, where authorities are expected to release more information about the case.

More background on the case

An autopsy was conducted on Sept. 6, 2011, the day after the infant was found. The medical examiner determined the infant was likely born within a day or two of her discovery. Part of the umbilical cord attached to the infant appeared to be cut by someone with a sharp-edged instrument. The complaint said it was not cut by a medical provider. The medical examiner also found bleeding on the infant’s brain and fractures on the front and side of her skull, the complaint said.

In 2024, an updated autopsy review revealed that the infant “sustained injuries of the head while alive.” The injuries would not have occurred if a medical professional had assisted with the birth. The medical examiner concluded it did not appear that the infant received medical treatment during or after birth.

“As the biological mother of the infant, Defendant had a duty to seek medical care on behalf of the infant during pregnancy, birth, and immediately after birth,” the complaint said.

In 2023, after the forensics genealogy company provided law enforcement with a possible lead to Baechle, deputies asked Baechle to provide a DNA sample. Baechle asked for more time to consider giving them a sample and to research Firebird Forensics Group.

Soon after her second request for additional time, a criminal defense lawyer sent a letter to the sheriff’s office requesting that any future contact with Baechle be made through the attorney.

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By ALI SWENSON

NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday blocked the Trump administration from immediately enacting certain changes to how federal elections are run, including adding a proof-of-citizenship requirement to the federal voter registration form.

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President Donald Trump had called for that and other sweeping changes to U.S. elections in an executive order signed in March, arguing the U.S. “fails to enforce basic and necessary election protections” that exist in other countries.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly sided with voting rights groups and Democrats to grant a preliminary injunction to stop the citizenship requirement from moving forward while the lawsuit plays out.

She also blocked part of the Republican president’s executive order requiring public assistance enrollees to have their citizenship assessed before getting access to the federal voter registration form.

But she denied other requests from the Democratic plaintiffs, including refusing to block Trump’s order to tighten mail ballot deadlines.

Because he was able to field, run and bat from the right side, the Twins were hoping to get utility expert Willi Castro back from an oblique strain in less than 10 days. That plan came to an end on Thursday.

Castro still can’t bat left-handed without the injury bothering him, so the Twins placed him on the 10-day injured list and recalled Mickey Gasper from Class AAA St. Paul.

“It’s kind of weird,” Castro said. “I know that right-handed (it) doesn’t bother me. Left-handed does. I can swing left handed, but I feel if I do my game swing, it’s going to get tight — or tighter than it is.”

The move is retroactive to April 21, so Castro, 28, will be eligible to return May 1. But Castro said he expects to miss 10 days and will spend the next few days resting.

“It’s Grade 1. It’s not bad,” Castro said. “The doctors told me that’s a good thing, it’s not bad. Hopefully (I’ll) just rest these days and let’s see what happens in a couple weeks, 10 days from now.”

Castro is hitting .227 with six doubles and a home run in 18 games. Gasper arrives having homered in each of his past two games in St. Paul, where he is hitting .333.

López to start Friday

Right-hander Pablo Lopez is scheduled to be activated from the 15-day IL and start Friday’s 6:40 p.m. start against the Angels at Target Field.

López hasn’t pitched since leaving an April 8 loss early after feeling tightness in his right hamstring. The Twins Opening Day start the past three seasons, López is 1-1 with a 1.62 earned-run average and 14 strikeouts in 16 ⅔ innings.

To make room for López, the Twins optioned David Festa back to St. Paul. The right-hander started Wednesday night’s 6-3 victory over the White Sox, giving up two earned runs on four hits and three walks in four innings.

Briefly

Royce Lewis appears to be nearing a rehab assignment. The infielder strained a hamstring trying to leg out a single in spring training and has been sidelined since. “He was running on the field yesterday,” manager Rocco Baldelli said Thursday. “He’s still building up in some ways and all that.”

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The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is threatening to revoke an essential permit for a long-running metal foundry on St. Paul’s East Side.

The MPCA has given Northern Iron until May 8 to provide key information related to its operating permit and efforts to capture emissions from its Forest Street foundry. Frank Kohlasch, assistant commissioner for air and climate policy at the regulatory agency, said if company does not provide the requested “building capture” data by that deadline, the agency will begin to revoke its permit.

Northern Iron, which was acquired in August 2022 by Lawton Standard of De Pere, Wis., has maintained a foundry near Phalen Boulevard and Arcade Street in the Payne-Phalen neighborhood since 1906. It employs about 80 United Steelworkers manufacturing metal casings and machine parts.

The company was fined $41,000 by the MPCA in October 2023 for permitting and air-quality monitoring violations that occurred over the course of 15 years. Since then, Northern Iron and the regulator have warred in court over whether the company is making a good-faith effort to meet state emissions and air quality monitoring standards written out in a 2023 stipulation agreement.

Requests for data

MPCA officials said they had made multiple requests for building data related to operations and emissions at the facility itself, mostly recently in a March 6 letter. The company, they said, refused to provide data related to a requirement that it maintain 100% “building capture,” and did not implement its own “building capture” plan.

“Northern Iron failed again to provide the information MPCA has been requesting for months and what little information was provided remains deficient,” said Kohlasch, in a written statement issued Thursday. “Minnesota law requires that the MPCA be satisfied the permitee will achieve compliance, that the applicant will maintain compliance with all conditions of the permit, and that all laws … have been fulfilled. Once again, based on the information Northern Iron has provided to date, the MPCA cannot make the determination that Northern Iron has met those conditions.”

In addition to the building capture data, the MPCA has demanded that the company complete stack testing and submit a plan to support that testing, with the goal of improving lead detection. Hood evaluations and certifications also must be completed.

Multiple court actions

In the past three years, the MPCA has maintained that the company’s own modeling information showed emissions levels of three different pollutants far above acceptable levels established by the Clean Air Act. Lead emissions, large particulate matter and fine particulate matter have all at times registered many times above the national standard for ambient air quality.

The company, in response, has maintained that those errors took place under previous ownership, or readings near the foundry came in high on days the foundry was not in operation, such as during the Fourth of July or Canadian wildfires. Northern Iron presented to the courts readings from 10 company and MPCA air-quality monitors showing air particulate matter to hover around 30% of national air-quality standards, or 70% below limits.

Calling the company’s PurpleAir testing equipment outdated, the MPCA issued an April 2024 order limiting Northern Iron’s material processing to 10 tons per day, or roughly a third of its normal 25- to 30-ton production. That limit, which reduced the company’s workforce, held until a July 2024 decision from Ramsey County District Court Judge Leonardo Castro lifted it.

The company’s petition to the court, filed in May of last year, called MPCA pollution modeling assumptions off base and computed on a 24-hour production schedule rather than on actual output. The company offered alternative compliance plans, which the MPCA rejected.

State regulators have maintained the company is still responsible for removing and replacing emission units and control equipment, failing to recertify hoods after making changes, and operating some of its pollution-control equipment out of permitted ranges. In its previous permit applications, Northern Iron also failed to fully list the facility’s activities that would have required it to conduct ambient air-quality modeling, according to the MPCA.

Class action lawsuit

In March, residents in the Payne-Phalen neighborhood filed their own class action lawsuit, claiming emissions have lowered their home values, damaged property and left homes coated in soot and dust.

The civil action, filed in Ramsey County District Court, seeks unspecified damages and names the Lawton Standard Co., Northern Iron LLC and Specialty Metals Holdco, LLC as defendants.

The lawsuit notes that an MPCA investigation tested soot collecting on homes near the foundry and found toxic heavy metals such as lead, chromium and manganese, which the suit calls evidence it originated from the Forest Street metal plant.

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