HENRICO COUNTY, Va. (WTVR)--One woman's trash could be a prosecutor’s treasure.
Police sources confirmed to CBS 6 Monday that feminine hygiene products removed from a trash bag helped investigators identify Darnesha Berry as the mother of two newborns found dead in a college trash bin.
Investigators in Lawrenceville had spent 15 years looking for the mother of the newborn twins, a boy and a girl found in a trash bag and dumped at Saint Paul's College in 1998.
The trash outside Berry's western Henrico townhome provided the DNA a few weeks ago, and police said it confirmed she was the mother.
Trash can be considered abandoned property and can be searched if police have a warrant for that address, according to legal experts.
"Apparently a tip led them to where they got that DNA and it confirmed she was the mother of the children,” CBS 6 legal expert Todd Stone said. “It still doesn't show whether it was an intentional or negligent homicide, but it is a tool to tie her to it so investigators can get more answers. It's a part of the puzzle, but it's not the whole thing."
Berry is being held at the Meherrin River Regional Jail with no bond until a July 25 court date. No one at her house would answer the door late Monday evening.
Click the video box below to watch Wayne Covil’s story from 2012.
