New court filings explain how investigators identified the child’s mother while expanding their inquiry to another baby whose whereabouts remain unknown.
DANBURY, Conn. — Connecticut authorities say they now know who gave birth to a newborn found dead at a Stamford recycling plant in 2018 and how the child entered the waste system, but the arrest of his mother has opened a second investigation and left several central questions unresolved.
Dominique Harrison, 28, is charged with murder with special circumstances after police alleged that she placed her living newborn son in a Danbury dumpster in October 2018. Investigators say the container was emptied into a truck that carried the baby to the City Carting & Recycling Center in Stamford. An employee found the child’s remains there on Oct. 16, 2018. Harrison was arrested June 18, nearly eight years after the discovery, and is being held on a $2.5 million bond. She has not been convicted.
The unsealed court records answer the question that shadowed the case from its beginning: the identity of the baby’s parents. A 2023 tip, family-tree research and DNA taken from discarded personal items led detectives first to the child’s father and then to Harrison, according to an arrest warrant. Yet the filings do not resolve why no viable lead emerged for almost five years, what prompted the tip, whether anyone knew about the pregnancy at the time or why Harrison allegedly gave investigators sharply different accounts after police contacted her.
The newborn was full term and had been born alive, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner determined. The medical examiner ruled the death a homicide by neglect in March 2019, listing the cause as the child having been placed in the garbage. Court records say the baby was carried through the recycling plant’s machinery after arriving in a collection truck. Authorities have described the injuries in the warrant, but the central allegation does not depend on the machinery alone: police say Harrison knowingly left a living child in a place where he was unlikely to be found or rescued.
That conclusion rests partly on statements investigators attribute to Harrison. During her first contact with detectives in March, she allegedly denied ever having a child. She later acknowledged giving birth but changed her description of the 2018 delivery and what followed, according to the warrant. In some accounts, she said the baby cried. In another, she said she believed he had been stillborn. She also described arranging for a friend to take a newborn to the hospital, an event police say actually involved a separate child born several years later.
The friend told investigators that he had transported a crying newborn from Harrison’s home to Danbury Hospital, but he said the event occurred in 2020 or 2021 and not in 2018. Police confirmed that a boy born to Harrison in April 2021 was brought to the hospital under the state’s Safe Haven law. The child survived and was later adopted, according to the warrant. Investigators said the circumstances described by the friend matched that birth, leaving Harrison’s first explanation for the 2018 baby unsupported.
As interviews continued, Harrison allegedly gave a different account. The warrant says she told detectives that the 2018 baby was born at home on Oct. 12 and that she later drove with him before placing him in a dumpster behind a Backus Avenue property. She allegedly said the child was still moving and crying less at the time. Police said she pointed out the area where she believed the dumpster had been. Investigators concluded that the child entered the recycling system from that location and remained alive until after being collected.
Those assertions have not yet been tested through trial testimony or cross-examination. The warrant represents the evidence police presented to establish probable cause for an arrest, not a finding of guilt. The defense has disputed the prosecution’s claim that Harrison is a danger to society and sought a lower bond. Her lawyers cited her employment, educational work and community connections. They also asked that she receive mental-health treatment and monitoring while detained.
Another open question is what evidence beyond Harrison’s alleged statements connects the Backus Avenue dumpster to the truck that reached the Stamford plant. Publicly released accounts describe genetic proof of the parent-child relationship and forensic findings concerning the baby’s death. They do not provide a full reconstruction of the collection route, identify a witness who saw the child placed in the dumpster or disclose surveillance video from the area. Those gaps do not mean such evidence does not exist, but authorities have not publicly detailed it.
The timeline of the investigative breakthrough is clearer. Stamford police received information in October 2023 suggesting the newborn was related to a family in the Danbury-Bethel area. Detectives used genetic genealogy and conventional investigation to narrow that family group. In November 2025, police recovered a cigarette discarded by the man they suspected was the father. DNA testing confirmed his biological connection to the child, the warrant says. Investigators then recovered a straw discarded by Harrison the following month. Laboratory testing later identified her as a biological parent.
The records do not disclose who provided the 2023 information, how that person obtained it or why it arrived five years after the child was found. Police also have not explained whether investigators previously reviewed births, medical visits or reported pregnancies in the Danbury area. Authorities have said only that the case was lengthy and complex and that Stamford and Danbury detectives worked together after the evidence placed the alleged killing in Danbury.
A further uncertainty emerged only after Harrison’s arrest. Search warrant records say she told detectives that she had given birth to another son in November 2019. Harrison allegedly first said she brought that baby to Danbury Hospital, but investigators found no record of the child’s arrival. The affidavit says she then claimed she left the living infant in woods behind her family’s Prince Street home and returned the next morning to find that he had died. She allegedly said she later placed his body in a recycling dumpster.
Authorities have not announced that they found the second baby’s remains. The court filings refer to the child as unaccounted for, and public records reviewed in the case do not establish his identity or confirm his death through medical or forensic evidence. Investigators seized a blanket Harrison said had been wrapped around that baby and sent it to the Department of Public Safety Forensic Science Laboratory. Police said the results could help determine whether physical evidence supports any part of the account.
The allegations concerning 2019 also raise questions about whether the two cases followed similar paths through the waste system and whether any unidentified remains were recovered elsewhere. Officials have not publicly linked the second account to a known discovery. Prosecutors said during Harrison’s arraignment that the continuing investigation could produce additional serious charges, but no new charge related to the alleged 2019 birth had been announced as of July 20.
The 2021 child presents a different outcome and another unresolved issue. He reached a hospital and survived, but the warrant says he arrived covered with mud, twigs and other outdoor material. Investigators wrote that they believed Harrison may initially have intended to leave that baby in the woods. Harrison has not been publicly charged over that allegation. The available records do not state whether child-welfare agencies investigated her at the time or whether authorities then connected the hospital surrender to the unidentified baby found in 2018.
Harrison is expected to return to state Superior Court in Danbury for a pretrial hearing July 24. Until prosecutors file additional evidence or charges, the public record contains a mixture of forensic findings, attributed statements and unanswered questions. The 2018 child has been linked to his mother, but his name has not been publicly released, and the fate of the baby described in the 2019 affidavit remains unknown.
Author note: Last updated July 20, 2026.