‘Saddest Death’ of Baby Jane Doe Spurs Reward

Day in and day out, for seven years, Alice Beard and her fellow caseworkers in Los Angeles County’s child abuse and neglect unit in El Monte have had to see just what kind of harm people can inflict on society’s most defenseless members--children.

But The Times’ recent account of the discovery of the body of an unidentified 10-month-old black girl--Jane Doe No. 61, found naked, starved and dumped in an alley behind some Baldwin Hills apartments--stood out even among Beard’s daily menu of horror stories.

“Even though we work with child abuse and neglect,” Beard said, “that Baby Jane Doe--I was so upset. That was the saddest case. I’ve never seen anything like that.”

So Beard scraped up $100 of her own money, passed the hat among caseworkers in her office and came up with a total of $135 to offer as a reward for anyone who can identify and bring to justice whoever it was who left the baby, dead and unknown, in the alley.

“It isn’t much,” Beard said.

But it was enough to prompt Lt. Vance Proctor of the Los Angeles Police Department’s child protection section--whose investigators have put in some extra hours and effort on this “very rare” case--to try to augment the sum. (The baby is still unidentified, and no arrests have been made.)

Proctor said Wednesday that he intends to set in motion the proper paper work asking the Los Angeles City Council to dip into its standing reward fund and offer something--perhaps $1,000--which, added to Alice Beard’s reward, might shake loose some information from someone who saw something that would lead to the child’s identity--and an arrest.