#Socialites, get a load of this! A 23-year-old woman’s AncestryDNA test results led to her grandmother’s arrest for infanticide in a 27-year-old cold case, infamously known as the “Baby Garnet” case.
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Last week, TikTok user Jenna Rose Gerwatoski told her followers how she took a genealogy test with AncestryDNA two years ago and that it resulted in the May arrest of her grandmother, Nancy Ann Gerwatoski, who was taken into custody for the 1997 “Baby Garnet” case.
Jenna, who lives in Saginaw, Michigan, revealed that she had never met her maternal grandma and was only told her name when she was 15 years old. Despite Jenna not knowing much about her grandmother, the cold case, in which Gerwatoski was a suspect, was very popular in their Michigan hometown, mostly due to the horrific details.
The woman revealed that her mother was estranged from her grandmother, who lived in Wyoming before her arrest, so the grandma and granddaughter never met.
Before Jenna’s viral TikTok, the Michigan Department of Attorney General said that in June 1997, the Mackinac County Sheriff’s Office and Michigan State Police opened an investigation after “the remains of a deceased infant were discovered in a campground pit toilet at the Garnet Lake Campground in the Upper Peninsula’s Hudson Township.”
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Police reported that a woman in the village of Newberry gave birth to a baby at home, however, they said the infant died of asphyxiation. An autopsy also revealed the “decedent to have been a ‘term or near-term infant’ of a gestational age of 36-42 weeks.”
The deceased infant became infamously known as “Baby Garnet” for the next 27 years until Nancy Ann Gerwatoski was linked to the cold case through her granddaughter’s AncestryDNA test and arrested for abandoning the child’s remains at the Garnet Lake Campground. Gerwatoski has been charged with one count each of open murder, involuntary manslaughter, and concealing the death of an individual. She is now expected to head to trial for the cold case murder and is facing life in prison if found guilty.
In her 7-minute video on TikTok, Jenna Rose Gerwatoski disclaimed to her followers that although she could not exactly explain “everything” that happened to her grandmother and her arrest in the 27-year-old cold case, she could, however, share a few details and her own experience and “story about getting an Ancestry DNA kit.”
Briefly speaking on how her grandmother was arrested for infanticide in a 27-year-old cold case, the woman said that one year after she got her AncestryDNA test results, a police officer contacted her. She recalled, “[He] was like, ‘I just want to let you know I reopened a cold case from like 25 years ago … and your DNA is a direct match to the victim of this case.”
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Jenna said after speaking with the police officer, he wanted to connect her with a woman in Chicago “who runs a worldwide database.” Jenna and the woman spoke, but didn’t progress as she believed she was a victim of a scam. A week later, her mother urged her to come home and upon her arrival, she spoke with a cousin who confirmed that the woman on the phone was part of a legitimate investigation process.
Jenna called the woman back and agreed to put her DNA into the “worldwide database.” From there, the woman’s DNA came back “as a distant relative” to someone involved in the “Baby Garnet” case. Jenna’s mother also agreed to offer her DNA and soon they learned that her grandmother was a suspect.
The woman said, “[They] ended up finding out that it’s not a distant relative to my mom, but a direct relative. And the only other people it could have been was my mom’s mother. They kind of started doing their own investigation and figured out that’s who it was. So we were mind blown.” She added, “Mind you, I’ve never met this woman before. She is literally the f***ing person that they’ve been looking for for 25 years. And it’s all because of a f***ing Ancestry DNA kit.”
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