Overview
- Prosecutors say Merker admitted during a Feb. 2 interview that she suffocated the newborn by placing paper towels in the infant’s mouth.
- The full-term baby girl was found in September 1993 inside a garbage bag under a Route 25 guardrail in Calverton, and the medical examiner ruled the death a homicide by suffocation.
- Authorities report that forensic investigative genetic genealogy linked the child to Merker after the medical examiner uploaded multiple infant profiles to the NamUs database in 2024–2025.
- Prosecutors contend Merker, then 22, hid her pregnancy, gave birth alone at her grandmother’s Aquebogue home, and left the baby’s body by the roadside.
- Merker pleaded not guilty at her Riverhead arraignment and is being held without bail, with the next court date set for April 15 and a potential sentence of up to life in prison if convicted.