Medical examiners have been unable to determine the sex, race or definite length of term of the fetal remains found Wednesday in a load of laundry at a south Evanston hospital, Evanston police said Thursday.
The remains of the fetus, which went through a wash cycle before being discovered Wednesday morning by laundry workers at St. Francis Hospital, 355 Ridge Ave., contained no soft tissue and thus left “no opportunity to recover DNA,” said Deputy Chief Joe Bellino of Evanston Police Department.
Based on the size of the remains, officials from the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office believe the fetus was between 15 and 17 weeks in development, although that is an unofficial estimate, Bellino said.
Police still are investigating how the remains ended up in a load of hospital linens at St. Francis, which is part of the nine-hospital Resurrection Health Care system and handles laundry from several other hospitals.
The linens did not come from St. Francis, Bellino said.
In October, the body of a baby boy was found entwined in a load of hospital linens in the laundry room at St. Francis. That case also still is under investigation, Bellino said.
He said it is too early in the new investigation to determine whether there was a relationship between the two incidents.
To investigate Wednesday’s incident, hospital officials are reviewing their records to make sure all recent miscarriages have gone either to the morgue or to funeral homes, Bellino said.
EPD investigators are talking to employees who drop off and pick up laundry for Resurrection, Bellino said.
“We’re trying to zero in on loads that were being done at the time to see if we can determine where the laundry came from,” he said.
The linens in the October incident came from St. Mary of Nazareth Hospital Center in Chicago, Bellino said. Police are investigating the incident with St. Mary officials, but Bellino declined to comment further because the case still is under “active investigation.”
Officials at St. Francis are providing counseling for any employees troubled about Wednesday’s incident, according to a statement released Wednesday by the hospital.
St. Francis spokeswoman Christine Rybicki referred all questions about the investigation to EPD.
Bellino said it is “too early into the investigation to eliminate any possible scenario.”
He said he doesn’t know if medical examiners ever will be able to determine the sex or any other identifying information about the fetus.
In a separate incident, the Chicago Tribune reported Thursday that the body of an infant boy only four or five days old was found outside Westlake Hospital, another Resurrection hospital in Melrose Park. The Tribune reported that the body was left in a box outside the hospital with a note in Spanish that read, “Please give this baby a Christian burial.”
Reach Marissa Conrad at [email protected].
