Investigators Look for Clues in Case of Infant Skeletons Found in Basement

Items inside a trunk stashed in the basement of the Glen-Donald apartment building in the Westlake area are just some of the clues authorities are using to investigate the case of the two infant skeletons found Tuesday, reports LA Now.

Today the L.A. County coroner's office is slated to conduct an autopsy on the two tiny skeletons that were discovered wrapped in 1930s issues of the L.A. Times and hidden in doctor bags stored in a steamer trunk. "The autopsies will involve a pathologist and an anthropologist. Investigators also will try to use DNA testing to determine whether the babies are related and toxicology tests to find out why they died."

Right now the case is classified as a "death investigation," and not a homicide. Case insiders have remarked that one body looks to be premature and was possibly miscarried or aborted, while the other looked to be newborn.

Information about the identity of the woman who owned the trunk is also being extrapolated from the other items found in the trunk and the trunk itself. Jean M. Barrie, possibly the same Jean Barrie who worked as a nurse just three miles from the apartment building, had in her possession items like "a ticket stub from the closing ceremonies of the 1932 Olympics at the L.A. Coliseum," and "postcards sent to her from far-flung locales such as Korea and South America and a pile of black-and-white photographs that showed a beautiful, fair-haired woman — who may have been Barrie — on vacation and in a wedding gown."

Barrie's connection to Peter Pan is also providing curious fodder for LAPD investigators, who found her "membership certificate for the Peter Pan Woodland Club, an upscale resort in Big Bear that offered guests swimming pools, skating ponds and hunting preserves." Barrie also shared a last name and the initials of the Peter Pan author, James M. Barrie.

Today's autopsy may provide more clues, or deepen the mystery of the dead babies and Jean M. Barrie.