DNA shows nurse was mom of mummified infants in LA

LOS ANGELES - LOS ANGELES (AP) - It was a mystery that could have been ripped right from the pages of a Raymond Chandler novel.

Someone carefully wrapped the mummified remains of two babies - a boy and a girl - in newspapers, placed each one in an old-fashioned doctor satchel, then locked them in a steamer trunk in the basement of a Los Angeles apartment building, where they remained for three-quarters of a century.

After months of sleuthing, police and coroner's officials solved at least part of the mystery this week when they confirmed the babies' mother was a Scottish woman named Janet M. Barrie who died in Canada in 1992 at the age of 95.

But questions remained about the identity of their father, why the babies were placed in the trunk, and why their mother kept it for decades, only to leave it behind when she moved to Canada.

Anybody who might have had the answers likely took the details to their grave.

"The entire story will probably never be known," police investigators said in a terse statement Monday noting DNA analysis confirmed Barrie was the mother of the children.

Police also said they had closed the case after concluding there was no evidence the children were murdered.

Veteran coroner's investigator Joyce Kato said piecing together Barrie's sketchy life story was one of her most fascinating and complicated pursuits.

The work began last August when two women cleaning the basement of the apartment building near downtown found the long-discarded trunk and what initially appeared to be its treasure trove of 1930s-era memorabilia.

There were books, antiques, an iron, girdle, nurse's uniform, letters and postcards - and the bodies of the two babies.

"We went through every single piece," said Kato, adding some of the items led them on wild goose chases to addresses they found for people in San Francisco and South Africa.

Outsiders, meanwhile, speculated that Barrie might have been related to "Peter Pan" author J.M. Barrie, something that was quickly disproved.

Through census and immigration records, investigators found Barrie had been born in Scotland in 1897, moved to Canada with her family as a child and eventually settled in the United States. She was living in Los Angeles during the 1930 census.

At some point, she briefly moved back to her Canadian hometown of Diamond City, Alberta, returning to the United States in 1941 and telling immigration officials in Detroit her sponsor was a dentist friend named Dr. George Knapp.

It turned out that Barrie, a nurse, worked for years caring for Knapp's ailing wife, Mary. At one point he bought three apartments in the Los Angeles building, converted two of them into a single dwelling for himself and his wife and put Barrie up in the other one.

After his wife died in 1964, Knapp, then 86, married the 67-year-old Barrie. He died four years later.

Barrie's niece, Marlene Brown of Alberta, Canada, provided authorities the DNA sample used to determine Barrie was the mother of the babies in the trunk.

Brown, who didn't return calls Tuesday from The Associated Press, told the Los Angeles Times her mother once speculated Barrie and Knapp were having an affair and would likely marry after Knapp's wife died.

Still, no one can say who was the father of Barrie's children or exactly how they died. Police said one was a fetus and the other a full-term infant. Neither body showed signs of trauma. Toxicology tests were inconclusive.

It's also not known why Barrie left the trunk behind when she returned to Canada in the late 1980s, although Kato said the family told investigators she was suffering from dementia by then. She died in Vancouver.

As was her wish, she was cremated and her ashes were buried in a Southern California cemetery with those of Knapp and his first wife.

"All three are in a beautiful niche in Forest Lawn," Kato said.