A former detective has revealed why a decades-old cold case was linked to a well-known AFL player, vowing it is only a matter of time before the 'baby in the post' mystery is solved. Northern Territory Police are still investigating how the body of a baby boy ended up at a Darwin post office on May 11, 1965.
The decomposed and naked body was found wrapped inside a bunch of newspapers after staff noticed a foul smell coming from the package. The umbilical cord was still attached, while a stocking was tightly wrapped around his neck. The parcel was addressed to the Darwin Post Office for someone named J Anderson, with a fake return address.
In 2023, former detective Denver Marchant, one of the original investigators, suggested on a podcast that J Anderson might have been former Aussie Rules player Jimmy Anderson. After hearing the podcast, Jimmy Anderson's daughter Amelia Anderson came forward to offer a DNA sample. A coroner allowed police to exhume the baby's unmarked grave in November 2023, and a DNA profile was obtained, but in February 2024 police confirmed it was not a match.
Mr Marchant, 84, now living in Queensland, said obtaining DNA from the baby was a 'small win' for the cold case team. He took the Hail Mary step of suggesting Jimmy Anderson's name to get the case moving again, knowing him personally before his death in 2017. 'You could count them on one hand, and I suspect two fingers,' he said of the number of J Andersons in Darwin in 1965.
Mr Marchant insists the case does not haunt him but says it would be nice to see it closed in his lifetime. 'It's going to be hard work because there's a pretty fair chance the perpetrator could well be long dead. But either way you'd get a result.'
