UNIONTOWN, Pa. -- A Fayette County woman has now pleaded guilty to helping her brother-in-law kill her newborn baby.
WTAE's news exchange partners at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review tell us Sara Sue Hawk plead guilty to third degree murder on Thursday.
The guilty plea was arranged in a deal for Hawk to testify against Warren Earnest Bircher, who police said killed the child, found in a Fayette County creek in June of 2000.
The investigation, which became known as the "Baby Mary" case went cold for more than eight years until DNA evidence connected the baby to Hawk.
According to investigators Bircher and Hawk, who was 16 at the time, were having an affair when Hawk revealed that she was pregnant by another man.
After Hawk gave birth, Bircher gathered some plastic bags, a flannel shirt and a backpack, and put the child inside the bag and took the backpack to Cove Run Creek, police said.
No one claimed the infant so the coroner named her Baby Mary.
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