Preliminary autopsy shows no sign of trauma on bodies of basement babies

A preliminary autopsy on the remains of two babies discovered wrapped in newspapers from the 1930s and stuffed into a steamer trunk in the basement of a Los Angeles apartment building found no apparent signs of trauma, authorities said Monday, and the preliminary cause of death has been classified as “undetermined.”

Officials with the Los Angeles County coroner’s office and the Los Angeles Police Department said the next step in their investigation would be to use toxicology and DNA tests to determine a final cause of death, whether the babies were related and to whom they belonged.

Hector Madrigal, a detective with the LAPD’s Abused Child Section, said authorities may use “familial DNA” to help identify the infants. The technique was used to identify accused serial killer Lonnie Franklin Jr., who is charged with killing 10 women in South Los Angeles, through DNA taken from an imprisoned relative. Madrigal said the use of familial DNA in this case would be voluntary, unless the final autopsy suggests a crime was committed.

Officials with knowledge of the case said one of the babies appeared to be premature — and might have been miscarried or aborted. The other baby appeared to be a newborn.

Meanwhile, police are working to identify the woman who owned the trunk in which the bodies were found last week.

The name Jean M. Barrie was inscribed on the trunk. But several clues suggest it may have belonged to a woman named Janet M. Barrie who was born in Scotland in 1897 and later lived with her husband at the apartment building at 2121 James M. Wood Boulevard, where the trunk had been stored for decades.

New evidence suggests Janet Barrie may have also gone by the name Jean.

A Los Angeles directory from 1929 lists a Jean Barrie living with a woman named Ada LuRoss in an apartment near MacArthur Park. The 1930 census shows a Janet Barrie living with LuRoss.

Police have not yet been able to determine whether Jean and Janet are the same person. They said their investigation has been helped by people who have heard about the case, done their own sleuthing on websites like ancestry.com, and sent in tips.

“We could have been chasing a lot of red herrings,” Madrigal said. “But people have been instrumental in helping us come closer to the facts in this case.”

andrew.blankstein@latimes.com

kate.linthicum@latimes.com