Pennsylvania has a safe haven law, and the baby could have been dropped off at any hospital or police station; no questions asked.
The investigation is ongoing.
Baby discovered in box in Strawberry Mansion
STRAWBERRY MANSION - December 21, 2011
The baby continues to be cared for and monitored at St. Christopher's Hospital, and is reported to be doing well, but officials want to know who would leave a baby out in the rain.
The man who discovered the baby says he can't believe someone would dump a baby like a piece of trash.
"Absolutely amazed that somebody would do something like that," said Homer Keller. "She still had the umbilical cord attached."
77 year old Homer Keller says it was just after 10:00am Wednesday morning when he noticed a box.
He was cleaning up the area for a local church at the corner of West Huntingdon and North 27th Street.
He says he picked it up thinking it was trash and was about to discard it with the rest of trash.
"I heard whimpering. You know, sounded like cats or something, and then the baby started crying in the box," said Keller.
Keller said he couldn't imagine how anyone could leave a baby outside in a box on a cloudy, rainy day.
"I pulled the covers back, and there was the baby," said Keller. "I thought it was a doll baby, but then it started moving and crying."
Police say the baby was wrapped in a hounds tooth blanket, an adult sized brown women's sweater, a black bathrobe and a large peach colored bath towel.
The baby was rushed to St. Christopher's where it was determined that the baby girl had been born only a few hours earlier.
Keller says he's just grateful he found the baby alive.
"She's so cute, and thank God she survived," Keller said. "The trash people would have come by and threw it in the truck and that would have been the end of that."
Baby Jane Doe will be put in the custody of the Department of Human Services.
In the meantime, police are hoping someone recognizes the items the baby was wrapped in and can help them identify the mother.
Police don't know if the mother was hoping she would be found by employees of the day care center nearby, or if she simply dumped the child without a care.
