Louisiana Couple Accused Of Murder 31 Years After Farmer Finds Their Baby Dead In Dumpster, Police Say

A Louisiana couple has been arrested in connection with a 1992 cold case involving the murder of a newborn baby who was smothered to death and then tossed into a dumpster behind a restaurant in Mississippi, officials said.

According to the Louisiana State Police, Inga Johansen Carriere and Andrew K. Carriere II, both 50, were charged with first-degree murder after advanced DNA technology helped to identify the couple as the infant’s parents.

A farmer discovered the baby in Picayune while he was searching through dumpsters to find feed for his animals, WVUE reported.

The baby’s body was wrapped in a towel with pieces of garbage and stuffed inside a trash bag, according to WVUE.

Officials said an autopsy conducted by the Mississippi State Medical Examiner’s Office showed the infant was around three weeks premature and lived for only a few minutes before she was smothered to death, officials said.

The cause of death was determined to be perinatal asphyxia due to smothering and was classified as a homicide.

Investigators were unable to identify any suspects at the time, and the case went cold. It was reopened in 2021 after a Mississippi Bureau of Investigation agent offered to help thanks to a grant that would cover forensic genetic testing of the evidence.

Officials said new technology helped to identify the infant's parents as the Carrieres, who were living in Louisiana at the time of the grisly discovery.

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Arrest warrants were issued and Inga Carriere was arrested on Feb. 28 at her residence in Avondale, Louisiana, and Andrew Carriere was arrested in Galliano, Louisiana, on March 9, police said.

Both were booked into the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center and were held without bond while awaiting extradition to Mississippi.

A former investigator on the case, Freedy Drennan, told WVUE he was glad the case was “brought to a conclusion” and he “didn’t care who brought it to a conclusion, I just wanted to see it.”

"There is evidence to show that my client believed the child was stillborn, which would not be newborn or baby or infant, and would not be a crime either," Paul Fleming, a longtime Jefferson Parish public defender representing Inga Carriere, told WDSU.

His office is in the initial stages of their own investigation, but he noted: "What we have determined so far would tend to exonerate our client. We don't think she had any guilty knowledge of this incident that happened more than 30 years ago."