No Clues Found in Deaths of 2 Infants Washed Ashore : Investigation: Authorities doubt that they were related. Preliminary autopsies fail to disclose causes of the deaths.

Law enforcement officials said Monday that they are still unable to unravel the mystery surrounding the deaths of two newborn girls whose bodies washed ashore on separate Orange County beaches over the weekend.

Both were full-term babies found with umbilical cords still attached, but investigators doubt that the infants were related. One was discovered Saturday morning in Newport Beach and the other Sunday morning in Sunset Beach. The deaths are being investigated separately as possible homicides by Newport Beach police and Orange County sheriff’s deputies, who have been unable to locate the mothers.

“It is going to be very difficult,” said Sgt. Andy Gonis, spokesman for the Newport Beach Police Department, assessing the probability of solving that city’s case.

“We are trying to locate one, presumably two, mothers who were pregnant and now are not and do not have infants,” he said.

Gonis said Newport Beach investigators want to know where the body found in their city first entered the ocean.

Investigators are seeking help from lifeguards and members of the U.S. Coast Guard who are knowledgeable about the force and direction of offshore currents, he said.

However, Glen Watabayashi, a federal oceanographer in Seattle, said the currents carrying the infants could have been affected unpredictably by runoff from the rains that fell much of the time the children are believed to have been in the water.

Another critical unanswered question, law enforcement investigators said, is whether the infants were alive before they were put in the water.

Brian Mitchell, the investigator assigned to the cases for the Orange County coroner’s office, said preliminary autopsies did not provide much information because the bodies were badly decomposed.

The body of the infant discovered in Newport Beach had been in the ocean five to six days, he said, and the one found in Sunset Beach had been in the water for three to four days.

“We don’t know if they were drowned or if they were live births. . . . We are in the dark,” said Mitchell.

A pathologist has collected samples of the babies’ organs for microscopic examinations, which may take several weeks to two months to complete but ultimately may reveal the cause and time of death, he said.

Mitchell said DNA testing would also be attempted in hope of determining whether the infants are related. He said DNA test results will be known in two to three months.

The girl found at Sunset Beach was 21 inches long and weighed 7 pounds. The baby found in Newport Beach was 19 inches long and weighed 8 pounds, officials said.

A spokesman for the Sheriff’s Department, which is investigating the death of the newborn found in Sunset Beach, said there are few clues.

Lt. Tom Garner said officers found a used syringe on the beach near the child’s body, but he added that investigators are uncertain if the syringe is connected in any way with the girl’s death.

Garner said the investigators’ primary concern is to learn whether the child was alive before it was put in the water, a determination that he said will probably be part of the coroner’s final report.

He added that the girl probably is not “from the same family” as the infant found in Newport Beach.

Sheriff’s investigators are not working with Newport Beach police at this time, “but I’m sure we’ll compare notes with them at some point,” Garner said.

The Newport Beach Police Department similarly will be in touch with the Sheriff’s Department, said Gonis. Moreover, he said, the department has sent a message asking cooperation from other law enforcement agencies statewide.