A man has described the shocking moment he opened a plastic bag to discover the grisly remains of a dead newborn baby which had been found in a freezer.
Shop worker Darnell Jackson, 23, ran to the house in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, at some time between 11.30am and midday on Thursday.
He had been told by his partner Carol Hirst, 28, to go round after she had seen the baby.
“I thought she must be telling the truth but I had to go and check for myself,” he told the Mirror.
“Carol said to me, ‘There’s a dead baby’, and that’s when she hung up.”
He said Carol was on the phone to police while he went through the house and saw a plastic bag moved from the freezer to the living room.
“I just literally grabbed the bag to take a look and straight away I could tell it was a dead baby,” he went on.
“The baby was in the foetal position. You could see that the skin was frozen, there was a lot of frost on its legs.”
A “shocked and speechless” Darnell went outside for a cigarette and waited for police to arrive.
Carol said she was also “traumatised” by what she had seen and went home to see her own baby.
South Yorkshire Police arrested two women aged 17 and 45 on suspicion of murder following the discovery of the murdered newborn at the house in Norman Crescent in the Rossington area of the town.
Officers were called to the home at 12.15pm along with the ambulance service, but the unnamed baby was pronounced dead at the scene.
The arrested pair remain in police custody.
Temporary Superintendent Jamie Henderson said: “This is an extremely tragic case and I know the local community, and those further afield, will be very upset to hear about what has happened.
“At this time, our investigation into the circumstances surrounding the baby’s death is in the very early stages and we ask the public not to speculate about the case.
“There is a cordon in place on Norman Crescent in the Rossington area while our officers carry out their work, and therefore we are asking members of the public to avoid the area at this time.”
