Overview
- A resident discovered the lifeless newborn in the courtyard of a high‑rise complex in Lichterfelde on Wednesday morning, and emergency crews pronounced the infant dead at the scene.
- Berlin’s 5. Mordkommission and Kriminaltechnik sealed the area, used laser scanners to document the site and collected DNA and trace evidence during an operation with about 40 officers.
- Police and the public prosecutor announced on Thursday that they have identified a suspected mother who is a juvenile; authorities took her into police custody and then handed her to hospital staff while withholding her exact age for privacy reasons.
- The corpse was sent for autopsy and investigators say the infant — reported to have been only hours to at most a day old with the umbilical cord still attached — showed severe injuries; it remains unclear whether the child was left in the courtyard or fell or was thrown from the building.
- Neighbors are shocked and searches of apartments in the Thermometersiedlung continue as prosecutors say further forensic results and witness findings will decide whether the inquiry becomes a homicide prosecution and what charges, if any, will be filed.