Baker anglers find baby’s body at Minam

Three Baker City residents discovered the dead body of a newborn baby Monday beside a dirt road near Minam State Park as they headed home after a day of fishing.

Mitch Johnson, 48, and his brother, Scott Johnson, 43, had taken a day off from their jobs at the Baker City Post Office to go steelhead fishing on the Minam River.

The brothers were accompanied by Mitch’s 12-year-old, Shakayla.

After a cold and wet day that produced no fish for dinner, the three turned toward home.

While the trio was driving out of Minam State Park Mitch spotted what appeared to be a baby lying about five yards from the road.

He said his brother had stopped a couple minutes earlier to urinate by the side of the road. They were driving away slowly, and had gone only about 20 feet, when Mitch saw the baby.

“I saw the baby out the window of the pickup just laying there,” he said this morning. “I said, ‘stop, back up.’ I knew what it was when I saw it.”

Scott Johnson, who along with his brother grew up in Baker City, said Mitch said to him: “I hope I didn’t see what I think I just saw.”

The brothers got out to get a closer look and check to see whether the baby was alive, although Mitch said it was pretty clear that the naked newborn could not have survived in the freezing temperatures.

There was blood on the ground, along with a paper towel or some type of white cloth smeared with blood near where the baby lay, he said.

Mitch said the road divides as it approaches the state park, taking travelers to the right on the way in and directing them the opposite direction on the way out.

As a result, when the Johnsons arrived at the park about 6 a.m. Monday they didn’t drive very close to the spot where they found the baby.

Still, Mitch said he was surprised another angler didn’t notice the baby’s body earlier.

Scott Johnson estimated two dozen people were fishing along the Minam on Monday morning.

The Johnsons tried to call 9-1-1 to report the baby’s death, but they didn’t have service in the Minam canyon. They drove farther down the road where they found a person with a pickup truck that had OnStar service, but they still were unable to call out.

Finally, they drove west on Highway 82 toward Elgin, and when they reached the top of the hill they had cell service.

Officers from the Wallowa County Sheriff’s Department met the three who then led the officers back to the baby.

According to The Observer newspaper in La Grande, Wallowa County Sheriff Fred Steen said it appears the baby was left at the scene within 24 hours of when the Johnsons found the body.

Steen said foul play is suspected in the death of the “near full-term baby.” Major crime teams from Baker, Union and Wallowa counties have been called to help the Wallowa County Sheriff’s Department continue the investigation. The state medical examiner in Portland is expected to conduct an autopsy in the next few days, The Observer reported.

“They asked us a lot of questions and taped off the scene,” Mitch said of the officers.

The Johnsons provided police with their phone numbers and drivers license numbers, but they hadn’t heard from them again as of this morning, Mitch said. They were released to return home after about a half-hour.

“The baby was so perfect looking, it’s face and head and everything,” Mitch said, adding that he couldn’t help thinking of his own four daughters, especially his 4-year-old who still looks like a baby to him.

“I think about that baby and how perfect it looked,” he said. “I feel bad, I feel sad.”

“That poor baby never had a chance ... to be loved or anything or to be held,” he said. “I  just wanted to hold it.”