A Virginia woman has been arrested three decades after authorities say she killed her newborn son and left his body inside a toilet at a Long Island movie theater.
Michelle Chronick Tyson, 59, was indicted on two counts of second-degree murder after newly conducted DNA analysis connected her to the infant’s 1996 death, the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office announced Thursday.
“As alleged, this defendant made a choice back in 1996 to take her newborn child’s life before he ever had the chance to experience the world beyond his first few breaths,” Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney said.
“The alleged circumstances of this infant’s death are deeply disturbing, and the fact that nearly three decades have passed does not diminish the gravity of this crime.”
The infant was found shortly after 12:30 a.m. on Nov. 18, 1996, inside a women’s restroom at the since-closed Commack Multiplex. Authorities said he died from “asphyxia with submersion in water.”
The Suffolk County Medical Examiner’s Office determined that the baby’s death was a homicide.
Investigators preserved a blood sample collected after the discovery, but the case remained without a suspect for years. The Cold Case Task Force eventually sent the evidence to a private laboratory, where testing produced a “Single Nucleotide Polymorphism DNA profile.”
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Using that profile, the specialized task force—made up of Suffolk County police officers and members of the district attorney’s office—identified Tyson as the likely biological mother.
Investigators obtained a warrant on Aug. 26 to collect a buccal swab from Tyson. Prosecutors said the testing confirmed that she was the slain infant’s biological mother.
Tyson was arrested Wednesday in Hampton, Virginia, and later extradited to Long Island to face the charges.
She was arraigned Thursday on the second-degree murder indictment and ordered held without bail.
If convicted of the top charge, Tyson could receive a sentence ranging from 25 years to life in prison.
Tierney said every child deserves “the chance to live, to grow and to thrive.”
“This infant was robbed of that chance,” he said, adding that prosecutors remain determined to seek justice for a life “tragically and selfishly cut short.”