Woman Who Left Newborn Baby At Mississippi River In 2003 Sentenced To 27 Years For Murder

The 51-year-old Minnesota woman who pleaded guilty to the death of a baby boy abandoned along the Mississippi more than 20 years ago will spend decades behind bars.

Jennifer Lynn Matter was sentenced Friday to 27 years in prison on a charge of Second Degree Murder — With Intent — Not Premeditated, and immediately taken into custody.

She was charged with the crime in May 2022 after DNA identified her as the mother of the newborn, who was found dead by a group of teenage girls at the Methodist Campus Beach in Frontenac on Dec. 7, 2003.

According to a criminal complaint, Matter said she had concealed her pregnancy, and after giving birth by the shore, told nobody of the baby’s existence or where she left him. Investigators believed the boy had been in the water for “one to five days.”

DNA also linked Matter to a baby girl found dead in the Lower Boat Harbor of the Mississippi River in Red Wing on Nov. 4, 1999, though Matter has not been charged in that death.

Per court documents, she eventually confessed to having the 1999 baby in the bathroom of her home, adding that her mental state was “in a bad spot” back then, noting how she was drinking, in and out of jail, and “doing a lot of stupid things.”

Matter said a day had passed after the baby was born, but she wasn’t sure because she was “drinking heavily.”

She then admitted to bringing the baby, wrapped in a towel, to Bay Point Park in the middle of the night and leaving it in the water.

After initially telling investigators she wasn’t aware of a second baby, Matter later confessed to having the 2003 baby at a public beach near Frontenac, Minnesota, and leaving it there.

“Genetic genealogy and Rapid DNA testing were both employed to develop a break in the case and then quickly confirm the identity of the babies’ mother,” BCA Superintendent Drew Evans said last year.

“These kinds of scientific advances that can aid investigations are happening all the time. That is why it is so important to never give up on any unsolved case.”

In a Friday news release, Goodhue County Sheriff Marty Kelly commented that “there is no amount of time that the Court can impose on the defendant that will bring back the lives lost.”