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A woman’s Ancestry DNA kit solved a nearly 30-year-old cold case, but it resulted in her grandmother facing a possible life sentence in prison.
TikTok user Jenna recently went viral after she explained how the results of her Ancestry DNA kit led to her grandmother’s arrest. She began her video with a bit of background on her family, noting that she “never met [her] grandmother” and “didn’t even know her name” until she was about 15.
She then explained that her grandmother was a suspect in the unsolved “Baby Garnet” case, which was “very popular” in the town she grew up in.
Back in June 1997, the Mackinac County Sheriff’s Office and Michigan State Police opened the investigation after “the remains of a deceased infant were discovered in a campground pit toilet at the Garnet Lake Campground in the Upper Peninsula’s Hudson Township,” according to the Michigan Department of Attorney General.
At the time, an autopsy determined the “decedent to have been a ‘term or near-term infant’ of a gestational age of 36-42 weeks.”
The deceased infamously became known as “Baby Garnet” for the next 27 years. However, it wasn’t until May of this year that Nancy Ann Gerwatoski was charged with one count each of open murder, involuntary manslaughter, and concealing the death of an individual.
She’ll now go to trial for the cold case murder, and is facing a life sentence in prison if she’s found guilty.
In her TikTok video, Jenna noted that while she couldn’t share “everything” that happened to her grandmother, she could share her “story about getting an ancestry DNA kit” two years ago.
She explained that she received a phone call from a police officer in Michigan one year after she got back her Ancestry results. “[He] was like, ‘I just want to let you know I re-opened a cold case from like 25 years ago… and your DNA is a direct match to the victim of this case,’” she said, referring to the Baby Garnet case.
As Jenna spoke with the officer, he said he wanted to connect her with a woman from Chicago, Illinois, “who runs a worldwide database.” However, Jenna admitted she had a few concerns when she spoke to the woman from Chicago after she was asked for a password. The TikToker felt like she was being scammed, so she hung up the phone.
It wasn’t until a week later that her mother had called her, telling her to come home. When she arrived, Jenna saw one of her cousins, who had told her that the phone call with the woman in Chicago “was not a scam” after all.
When Jenna called the woman back, she agreed to put her DNA into the worldwide database. From there, her DNA came back “as a distant relative” to someone involved in the Baby Garnet case. After her mother also agreed to offer her DNA, Jenna soon learned that her grandmother was a suspect.
“[They] ended up finding out that it’s not a distant relative to my mom, but a direct relative,” Jenna told her TikTok followers. “And the only other people it could have been was my mom’s mother. They kind of started doing their own investigation and figured out that’s who it was. So we were mind blown.”
Jenna added: “Mind you, I’ve never met this woman before. She is literally the f***ing person that they’ve been looking for for 25 years. And it’s all because of a f***ing Ancestry DNA kit.”
Despite detailing how the investigation “unfolded” since receiving her Ancestry DNA results, Jenna revealed that she was unable to discuss anything else about the incident.
The Independent contacted Jenna for comment.
According to local Michigan news outlet Wood TV, Nancy Ann Gerwatowski was arrested in July 2022 and placed in the Mackinac County Jail on an open murder warrant as the suspect in the 1997 Baby Garnet case.
Her arrest came after investigative efforts were renewed in 2017, when a Michigan State Police detective sargent “initiated familial genetic genealogical tracing with the assistance of a private laboratory and the Federal Bureau of Investigations,” who by this time had possessed the skeletal remains of Baby Garnet, as noted by the state of Michigan.
“A lab received remains to test in 2020, and in 2022 a DNA profile was developed and returned indicating a specific familial lineage,” the state reported.
These results led investigators to Nancy Gerwatowski, who was then living in Wyoming. The Michigan attorney general’s office stated that additional DNA testing of Gerwatowski obtained through a search warrant had indeed confirmed her parentage to Baby Garnet.
The state also claimed that Gerwatowski was alone when she delivered her baby, who died due to asphyxiation. However, the baby’s “death could have been prevented by medical intervention,” which Gerwatowski reportedly did not seek.
A hearing is scheduled for December 12, according to court records, to decide if Gerwatowski’s statement, abortion consideration, and her lack of prenatal healthcare can be used in the trial. The hearing will also determine if her concealing the death of an individual charge can be dismissed.
