FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. _ The body of a baby girl, no more than 14 days old, was found floating in the ocean near the Boynton Beach Inlet on Friday afternoon and investigators still are working to identify her.
On Monday afternoon, the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office issued a plea for the public's assistance in identifying the child or her parents.
The naked infant was discovered about 75 to 100 feet from shore by an off-duty Boynton Beach firefighter who was out boating.
"It's gut-wrenching, and we hate seeing it and we really desperately want to get to the bottom of what happened," said Capt. Steven Strivelli, of the sheriff's special victims unit. "At this point we're still in the theory phase, we don't know what really happened."
Detectives released an artist's rendering of what the baby might have looked like at birth. She appeared to have dark skin, but investigators had not yet figured out her nationality, Strivelli said.
He could not say whether the child showed any signs of abuse or whether it appeared that she had been born at a hospital. She had no identifying marks.
Investigators urge anyone who can identify the baby or who has any information about her to contact Detective Cliff Hamilton at 561-488-4155 or hamiltonc@pbso.org.
The state Department of Children and Families has opened a child-death investigation. "The discovery of this little girl is awful," the agency's statement said. "At this time, very few details are known other than the manner in which she was found."
