The Mystery of Baby John Doe

Cheyenne, Wyoming’s 33-year-old mystery of what happened to baby John Doe has a chance of being solved with new advances in DNA.

Wess Haubrich
3 min readApr 15, 2021
Baby John Doe’s grave. Source: Cowboy State Daily.

February 28, 1988, saw some early signs of springtime life for bitterly cold Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Lots of townspeople were out walking that day to release some of that pent-up winter energy. Two of those townspeople would make the local news for their frightful discovery near McKinney Drive and Happy Jack Road (a hell of a place to discover something so macabre).

At first, they didn’t know what to make of the blanket wrapped around something on the ground just off the road in a culvert. A feral dog was gnawing at what they first thought was a child’s toy doll.

When the couple got closer they saw something much more sinister. The beast mauled a human baby boy. The baby boy was little — only about 6.5 pounds. His eyes were azure blue and he had brown hair. After the couple scared the mutt away, they found out he was cold to the touch.

No one was around. It was not obvious who the boy belonged to — who left him so callously in a desolate Wyoming culvert that became the boy’s open-air, animal-stalked grave — in winter no less.

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Wess Haubrich
Wess Haubrich

Written by Wess Haubrich

Horror, crime, noir with a distinctly southwestern tinge. Staff writer, former contributing editor; occultist; anthropologist of symbols.

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