Arlington woman arrested for cold case death of newborn found in Phoenix airport trashcan
PHOENIX - Police say a woman has been arrested nearly 20 years after her newborn baby was found dead at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.
"Baby Skylar" was found wrapped in newspapers and a towel, and stuffed in a hotel plastic bag in a trash can in a Terminal 4 women's restroom at the airport on Oct. 10, 2005.
"They discovered a female newborn, wrapped in newspapers, and a white towel, stuffed in a plastic bag with red Marriott Lettering, deceased," said Lt. James Hester with the Phoenix Police Homicide Unit.
The infant's death was ruled a homicide, and the manner of death was suffocation.
For years, detectives worked the case, even releasing a composite back in 2017 of what they believed the mother of the child looked like.
In 2021, the FBI helped officers use genetic genealogy to find a maternal match for the victim. That was cross-referenced with DNA collected from the scene.
Court documents show plainclothes officers asked 51-year-old Annie Anderson to come outside her home in Arlington, Washington in 2023 to look at her car. That’s when police arrested her, just three days before Christmas, without incident.
She is currently being held in the Snohomish County Jail on no bail.
Anderson is accused of a number of criminal offenses, including murder and abandonment or concealment of a dead body.
"This community that we serve rightfully expects that all of our victims are never forgotten," said Lt. Hester.
The murder case went unsolved for years as investigators used different technologies in hopes of finding the baby's mother.
In 2017, a tool called "Snapshot" used DNA that was left on "Baby Skylar" to create a composite sketch of the mother.
A few years later, investigators say they were able to identify a potential maternal match for the victim.
"Investigators cross-referenced the potential match with evidence originally collected at the scene and identified the probable mother of Baby Skylar," police said.
Anderson is awaiting extradition to Arizona.
She is scheduled for a hearing in Snohomish County Superior Court on March 18.