DUNNVILLE—After two years, Nancy Labuda’s heart still aches when she thinks about Dunnville’s Baby Doe.
On May 17, 2022, just before 1:30 p.m., two people fishing came upon a grim discovery – the body of a young girl floating in a marshy area off Grand Island on the southern banks of the Grand River, directly south of the Dunnville Boat Club.
Labuda said she and a friend had been by the boat club earlier that morning, praying for the community. When she heard the news the next day, “I cried. It just pulled at my heart, that someone would do something so dreadful to this little girl.”
In May 2023, the case remained unsolved and the girl unidentified, so Labuda paid for a memorial to be put in The Haldimand Press; she did it again this year.
“Her little life was important, and she should never be tossed away and forgotten,” Labuda said.
The sketch with the memorial (on Page 6) is a sort of self-portrait of Labuda, who said she suffered trauma as a child and is a survivor with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Art has been a way for her to process emotions, and this sketch was an expression of the fear and sadness she felt when young. Labuda said she used the sketch in the memorial because she thought it would honour Baby Doe’s experience as well.
She hopes the memorial will encourage anyone with information that could help solve Baby Doe’s case to come forward. She also hopes it will encourage people to notify the authorities if they believe a child might be experiencing neglect or abuse – part of what concerns Labuda with this case is wondering whether Baby Doe had any siblings, and if so, whether they’re safe.
While Labuda finds some comfort in her faith, and the fact that the girl’s suffering has ended, “Still, something happened to her, and she deserves justice.… This little one needs to be not forgotten until we know her name, until she’s claimed, and until she’s properly put to rest.”
The investigators on the case share the same conviction and have taken steps to try and make that happen.
On May 13, 2024, the OPP released a 3D facial approximation of the girl in hopes that someone would see it and recognize her. The same day, a documentary titled The Grand River Baby: Unsolved was released.
