On Dec. 25, 1931, The Arizona Republic reported:
"The fates collaborated late yesterday afternoon, and as the result a baby girl abandoned on the desert 10 miles west of Superior had been given a temporary home in a Mesa maternity hospital while seven families of that valley city had offered permanent havens.
"Tire trouble of a homeward-bound Phoenix motorist, the restlessness of the motorists wife and the muffled cries that broke the desert’s usual vast stillness combined to save the tiny tot just as the approaching dusk heralded another anniversary of the Christ Child’s nativity.
"Without a clue as to the babe’s identity, peace officers throughout central Arizona were wondering last night who her parents might be, where they are now, and why the wee tot was left 150 feet from the highway in the cacti-studded wastes on the uplands beyond Florence Junction …"
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Two months after her miraculous discovery made national headlines, the baby was adopted by a Phoenix couple and seemingly never heard from again.
Until, that is, journalist John D'Anna got a phone call in 1988, launching his on-and-off, 30-year hunt to solve the enduring mystery of who left the baby in the hatbox — and why.
What he found unfolded clue by fascinating clue, sometimes leading down rabbit holes to dead ends, until startling coincidences and evolving science led to ever-more promising leads.
It is a captivating story that he now tells, all these Christmases later, in The Arizona Republic and on azcentral.com. Read it here.
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