The decision to surrender a newborn, whether through adoption or through a Safe Haven box, hospital, or law enforcement agency, is never easy. But those legal options exist because sometimes, new parents are faced with impossible circumstances. Tragically, however, a newborn was recently found dead inside a box for abandoned babies at a church in Italy.
An investigation is underway after the infant’s body was discovered. Evidently, the alarm notifying the church that a baby was left in the box did not go off. Police also are attempting to determine whether the baby boy was already dead when he was surrendered.
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The baby's body was found at a church in Bari, Italy.
On January 2, the baby boy was discovered dead in a “thermal cradle” for abandoned babies. The box was located at San Giovanni Battista Church in Bari, Ansa reported. Reportedly, the discovery happened in the morning.
A funeral director discovered the dead newborn.
A local funeral home director walked by the baby box, located on the outside of the church and noticed the baby, CNN reported. (The placement is for privacy reasons.) The person who left the baby apparently didn’t close the door to the room where the box was, so the alarm wasn’t triggered.
Father Antonio Ruccia explained how the cradle worked.
Parish priest the Rev. Antonio Ruccia, told Ansa, “My cell phone, which is connected to the cradle, did not ring.”
“Maybe he could have been saved, but we must forgive,” Ruccia told La Repubblica. The newborn boy was roughly 1 month old.
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Police are investigating the incident.
Police said it was unclear whether the infant died before or after he was left in the box at the church. An autopsy will hopefully offer more insight into the circumstances of his death.
The box was used successfully in two other cases.
Before the January 2025 tragedy, the baby box was used correctly twice. Infants were recovered on July 19, 2020, and on December 23, 2023, La Repubblica reported. The church added the box after a baby was found dead nearby in Monopoli in 2015, Ansa reported.
