On the verge | Foundling Ep 1

Summary

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Foundling | Tortoise Investigates

Episode 1: On the Verge

Release date: March 24, 2026
Reporter: Lucy Greenwell
Main Participants: Jess (the foundling), Lucy’s family, Aldwyn Jones (police), Terry Hunt (journalist), Jean (local resident)

Overview

This inaugural episode of the six-part series "Foundling" explores the real-life mystery of a newborn baby girl who was found abandoned by a country lane in rural Suffolk in 1987. Decades later, journalist Lucy Greenwell, compelled by childhood memories of the incident and a personal connection to the place, sets out to find Jess—the abandoned girl, now an adult—and uncover what happened and why. The episode weaves together family folklore, rural community recollections, and the complexities of adoption, secrecy, and trauma.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Enduring Family Mystery

• Lucy recalls how the story of the foundling baby became an oft-repeated myth in her family, a puzzle retold at every gathering ([02:53]).
  • Quote: "It's that thing that always comes up when you’re together. Someone mentions a name, a place, or a particular memory, and there you all go again." — Lucy ([03:12])

2. Recounting the Discovery (Oct 6, 1987)

• Narration recreates the day Jess was found:
  • Baby found in a Sainsbury’s bag, wearing a nappy and too-large vest.
  • Found by a nanny, wrapped in a jumper, and taken to hospital ([04:08]).
• Community and family remember the "miracle" of the baby’s survival.

3. Media, Memory, and Local Impact

• Early TV coverage and the retelling of the event:
  • Young Lucy and her sisters felt like detectives, knowing the nanny who found Jess ([06:32]).
  • Family and community can't stop speculating: "How do you find a baby?" ([06:06])

4. Context of Abandonment and Its Rarity

• The episode discusses the wider phenomenon, with reports of other abandoned infants—most not surviving ([07:45]).
• Lucy’s lifelong curiosity about the fate of such babies, and in particular, the unknown mother: "Who would carry a beautiful, healthy baby girl to a lonely country lane and just dump her in a plastic bag?" ([08:50])

5. Jess: From Foundling Baby to Adult

• Introduction to Jess, 38, adopted and thriving but left with questions ([11:15]).
  • Quote: "I always hoped it was this lovely love story, that they just couldn’t be together." — Jess ([10:38])
• Jess shares childhood memories, revealing an idyllic upbringing yet haunted by a sense of rejection and secrecy.

6. Learning the Truth

• Jess discovers her origin in a B&Q carpark as a child:
  • Her parents break the news that she was abandoned and her mother is unknown ([14:12]).
  • Quote: “I instantly felt very little again. I felt really young, because it felt like it was too much information.” — Jess ([14:45])
• Rejection and shame become entwined with her otherwise happy childhood ([15:29]).

7. Jess’s Quest for Answers

• Adolescence brings peer curiosity, but she initially shies away from searching.

The Verge

• In her 20s, Jess embarks on a pilgrimage to the roadside where she was found, seeking insight.
  • Helps validate and memorialize the place of her rescue ([21:43]).
  • Anger surfaces at the remoteness of her abandonment ([22:36]):
    • Quote: “Of all the places you could have left me, you’ve left me somewhere that nobody goes. Like, unless you were local to that village, like, nobody goes down that lane.” — Jess ([22:36])
  • Jean, a local, provides village context and confirms suspicions that only a local would know of the lane ([20:30]).

8. Police Investigation and Legal Framework

• Lucy explores the police’s attitude and the case files:
  • Discovery that abandonment is a crime punishable by prison; no statute of limitations ([25:16]).
  • Lucy and Jess are clear: their goal is not prosecution but understanding ([26:28]).
• Reluctant police and villagers underscore how the story still resonates and causes discomfort decades later.

Interview with Aldwyn Jones (Retired Detective Chief Inspector)

• He describes the rarity of foundling cases and recounts the rainy day of discovery, when crucial evidence may have been lost ([30:32]).
  • Quote: “It was a rarity to find the baby alive.” — Aldwyn ([30:18])
• Investigation details: analogue methods, house-to-house inquiries, a dedicated phone line, a green Austin car and suspicious phone calls ([35:03]).

The Press Perspective

• Terry Hunt, local reporter:
  • Remembers the scene as "very, very lonely, even for Suffolk" ([34:11]).
  • Still ponders the mystery years later: “Why didn't the person who left it leave it somewhere where they knew it was going to be found?" ([34:40])

9. Breakthrough – The Nanny Who Found Jess

• Following investigative tips, Jess tracks down Jennifer, the then-18-year-old nanny who discovered her ([39:18]).
• Their Facebook exchange provides emotional closure and more questions:
  • Quote: “If I'd been asked, I would have called you Rebecca. Heather never seemed you.” — Jennifer (message to Jess) ([41:16])

10. Repercussions and Reflections

• Jess and Lucy discuss the toll of unearthing these long-buried secrets:
  • Quote: "If I'd have known it was going to be as traumatic as it's been, I probably wouldn’t have carried on digging." — Jess ([42:08])

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• On Family Folklore:
  "It's that thing that always comes up when you’re together. Someone mentions a name, a place, or a particular memory, and there you all go again." — Lucy ([03:12])

• On Rejection:
  “I instantly felt, well, you do. You just instantly feel rejected, like you feel that you can't, that you're not really wanted. Although I had this incredible upbringing where I was so wanted, so loved, why didn't that person want me?” — Jess ([15:29])

• On the Verge:
  “Of all the places you could have left me, you’ve left me somewhere that nobody goes… Why would you think anyone would have picked me up from there?” — Jess ([22:36])

• On the act of leaving:
  "Most babies are abandoned, often in places where they can be found readily... that's always been the pattern of abandoned babies." — Aldwyn Jones ([34:50])

• On the rare rescue:
  “It was a rarity to find the baby alive.” — Aldwyn Jones ([30:18])

• On the burden of seeking truth:
  "If I'd have known it was going to be as traumatic as it has been, I probably wouldn't have carried on digging." — Jess ([42:08])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Lucy’s Family Recalling the Mystery: [02:53] – [04:08]
• Original News Coverage and Baby Discovery: [04:08] – [06:06]
• Jess’s Early Memories and Parental Revelation: [13:04] – [15:56]
• Jess’s Visit to the Verge & Local Interviews: [18:47] – [23:25]
• Police and Media Investigation Details: [30:06] – [35:49]
• Tracking Down the Nanny (Jennifer): [38:14] – [41:44]
• Episode Reflection and Looking Ahead: [42:05] – [42:58]

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Tone and Style

• Intimate and investigative, blending memoir, journalism, and true crime.
• Lucy's narration is reflective, empathetic, and meticulous.
• Jess’s voice is open, vulnerable, sometimes wry, showing the lingering weight of abandonment and the ironies of community memory.

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Conclusion & Lead-in to Next Episode

Lucy and Jess have begun to untangle a story knotted with secrecy, suspicion, and unanswered questions. The investigation’s emotional intensity is foregrounded, warning that seeking the truth can be fraught—"a spindle of lies" as Jess puts it ([42:15]). The quest is far from over, and listeners are left anticipating deeper revelations to come.

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Transcript

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[Lucy Greenwell]

Tortoise Investigates.

[Jess]

You wouldn't just drop it off in the middle of the countryside and hope for the best.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Yeah, there's obviously something fishy about the story. So the story didn't ring true, but we couldn't quite work out why for ages.

[Jess]

We didn't. Yeah, it didn't really wash.

[Lucy Greenwell]

I'm sitting around a table with my sisters. We're drinking tea and going over a memory from when we were kids. It's something we've been through so many times over the years. We were like, why did you stop? Because she was driving. We said, why did you? What made you stop to look what it was? Because she said it was in a plastic bag and she said, I saw it. You see, this is a story my family can never quite put to rest. Maybe every family has one of these. It's that thing that always comes up when you're together. Someone mentions a name, a place or a particular memory, and there you all go again. The story gets told and retold, details are debated, bits get embellished, and over time it becomes family folklore. We talk about it over the years and be like so weird. And we used to guess where it was on that road. Oh you did, you know what's wrong? But the thing is this isn't our story. It belongs to someone else.

[Progressive Insurance Advertiser]

The six pound three and a half ounce baby is doing well in hospital after being dumped in an orange and

[Lucy Greenwell]

white plastic bag around mid morning yesterday. A baby girl who appears from Nowhere on Tuesday 6th October 1987, lying on a patch of damp grass beside a remote country lane in Suffolk.

[Progressive Insurance Advertiser]

She was wearing a nappy and this oversized Adams make thermal vest.

[Lucy Greenwell]

The vest is white, sleeveless and much too big for her. She's lying half wrapped in a Sainsbury supermarket bag like a makeshift plastic cradle. Late that morning, a passing driver spots the baby she's picked up wrapped in a jumper and taken to hospital. A small miracle. For years I've thought about that day and wondered about the baby and the mother who left her there. Because right from the start there were questions because we were just like, how did it get there? How did it get there? Into this place in the middle of

[Jess]

the fields, in the middle of nowhere?

[Lucy Greenwell]

We lived nearby. I was just eight at the time. But even at that young age we knew that this real life mystery happening on our doorstep was a big deal. I can still remember where I was when I was told about the abandoned baby. I can see myself now. I'm walking out of the black school gates, the sun's on my face. Our nanny's come to pick me up and she's standing there in the car park. You won't believe what happened today, she says and what she recounts. The lane, the baby, the passing driver. It feels like a scene from a film, except it's a film that to this day my sisters and I still can't quite make sense of. When we got older we were like,

[Jess]

she found a baby. She what?

[Lucy Greenwell]

How do you find a baby?

[Jess]

Like we talk about it occasionally.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Good evening.

[Aldwyn Jones]

The.

[Lucy Greenwell]

That evening we watched the six o' clock Anglia news. Our big boxy telly lived on a tall chest of drawers and I had to crane my neck a bit to see it. When, when you saw the baby, I mean what, what did you, what did it look like?

[Jess]

Very happy. It was gurgling, smiling.

[Lucy Greenwell]

It was, it was. No one knows how the baby came to be there, but we feel like detectives because we're close to this story. We actually know the woman who found the baby. She's our friend's nanny and now there she is being interviewed on tv.

[Jess]

Heat its feet and Hands were bluish, but it was perfectly happy and very sweet.

[Lucy Greenwell]

So what did you do after you

[Progressive Insurance Advertiser]

got into the car?

[Jess]

Well, I dropped my jumper around this point because I knew that you had

[Lucy Greenwell]

to keep babies, you know, keep them warm. Drove down, all the way down the road again just to turn around and

[Jess]

sort of sped back and thought, the gardener's going to be at home.

[Lucy Greenwell]

He'll know what to do.

[Jess]

Because I didn't know where to go next.

[Lucy Greenwell]

The newsreader tells us that the midwives at the hospital give the baby a name, Heather. For years, we focus on that day, that grassy verge, the baby. Over time, the story of the Suffolk foundling is rubbed so smooth by years of retelling, I can no longer get a firm grip on it.

[Jess]

A newborn believed to have been delivered in the last 24 hours has been

[Karim]

abandoned outside South Tuggeranong fire station in Canberra.

[Lucy Greenwell]

And every so often, stories about babies being abandoned crop up. A woman has been arrested after a newborn baby was found dead in a plastic bag in London last week. Sheriff's office says this is an epidemic.

[Karim]

After this is now the third baby

[Lucy Greenwell]

found either abandoned or dead within the last month. Here in each time it happens, I think of that Suffolk baby. Whose was she? What happened to her? And occasionally, when I search online for child abandonment, I find there's very little to explain what happens to the babies who are left. And there's even less about their mothers. I've spent decades as a radio producer researching true stories. And yet, after all this time, I know no more about the Suffolk baby than I did as a child. So I make a decision to go back, back to the Suffolk of 1987, to try and answer the questions that have gnawed at me for years. What happened to that baby? What does it do to you to know that you were left abandoned? And perhaps even more intriguing for me are the questions about her mother, who would carry a beautiful, healthy baby girl to a lonely country lane and just dump leather in a plastic bag. When I was eight, it had felt like a beguiling whodunit. Later, I'd imagined a more nuanced story of trauma and loss. But what I've uncovered over the last year is a story which is much more troubling than anything we dreamt up as children. It's about family.

[Jess]

I think I'll always be angry because you're constantly thinking, could it have ended differently had things been different about motherhood?

[Lucy Greenwell]

I don't think I've still fully accepted it, to be honest. There's still A part of me that

[Jess]

thinks this can't be happening, it's not real.

[Lucy Greenwell]

And about how secrets can, in the end, bubble up and destroy things.

[Jess]

Lies always come out, don't they? Skeletons are always going to come out eventually.

[Lucy Greenwell]

I'm Lucy Greenwell and from Tortoise Investigates. I the Observer. This is Foundling episode one, on the Verge. Did you sort of start imagining who your mum and dad might be? Did you have any. Did you build up little fantasies about the kind of people they might have been?

[Jess]

At any stage, you always hope that it was this lovely love story, that they just couldn't be together. You just wish any family and any, anyone from any adoptive background, you always hope and wish that it was some beautiful love story, that it was just unfortunate.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Whenever I tell this story to friends and I explain that I've tracked down the abandoned baby, they're amazed I've got

[Jess]

this huge mass of curly hair and that's always been in the back of my mind. I instantly thought I'd have someone at the end of, you know, if I ever did find them that would have a huge mass of curly hair.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Over the years, we referred to the baby as Heather, the name she was given by midwives. But when I start asking around in the local area, it turns out a few people know her new name and it doesn't take too much detective work to track her down. So meet that abandoned baby girl, Jess. She's now 38 years old, has big eyes, a huge smile and that distinctive curly hair.

[Jess]

So these are the newspaper cuttings that I wasn't the prettiest of babies, but there's little crocheted dress with crocheted booties.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Oh, there you are.

[Jess]

When I first got into hospital, looking quite alert.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Yes, it's just a photos and underneath it says baby Heather. Will she ever know her mother's identity?

[Jess]

And then this one's a baby abandoned baby Heather made ready for adoption for decades.

[Lucy Greenwell]

This flimsy folder of newspaper cuttings is all the information Jess has.

[Jess]

So Heather had been transferred into a loving home just days after being left beside a lonely Suffolk road. So that's obviously where I went into foster care. So that's about a week after these

[Lucy Greenwell]

articles lay out what happened to baby Jess after she's handed to the nurses. Reading them, it's clear to me the midwives, social workers, the police and the press are all desperately trying to persuade Jess mother to come forward. Despite these repeated appeals, no one does. Jess is placed in foster care and after three months, she's matched with A Suffolk couple who already have one adopted daughter. After this dramatic start, Jess tells me her life was pretty happy, actually. What she describes is an idyllic childhood.

[Jess]

We had the park across the road. My best friends were in the village next door. Yeah, we'd be playing outside all day every day and then come in for a home cooked meal at 5 on the dot every day. And always a dessert, which my friends always thought was amazing because they didn't have dessert. You know, there was lots of jelly, there was lots of Angel Delight, lots of crumbles and apple pies and trifles.

[Lucy Greenwell]

She says there were aunts, uncles and grandparents living on the same street. Jess and her sister Laura roam free, surrounded by love and affection. Jess has always known that she's adopted, but she tells me that until she's 11, she never really thought to question why. Until this one day for her birthday. Her parents had given her a TV for her bedroom, but the screen kept going fuzzy. So she and her dad are out shopping for a new Ariel. There they are, just parking up outside B and Q.

[Jess]

And then I just kind of said, oh, I wonder. I did wonder a little bit about my adoption, as Laura knows about hers now.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Laura is Jess older and also adopted sister. A few weeks earlier, Laura had found out about her own birth parents.

[Jess]

And dad being dad just naturally said in a Suffolk accent, oh, bloody hell. He said, I always hoped that your mum would be here when you asked that question, because it's not so straightforward as your sister then.

[Lucy Greenwell]

And there in the car, he tells her that she was found abandoned and that no one knows who her birth parents are.

[Jess]

And then we kind of sat there in the car in the car park of B and Q and I just sat sobbing. I didn't think, well, you wouldn't. But it didn't ever cross my mind it would be something like that. And I instantly felt very little again. I felt really young because it felt like it was too much information.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Most of us have an origin story, how we arrived into the world, who was there, what was said. Jess has assumed that she has one too, just like her sister Laura. But from this moment on, she's aware of a void, a complete blank where her beginning should be. And that not knowing, it's tough.

[Jess]

I instantly felt, well, you do. You just instantly feel rejected, like you feel that you can't, that you're not really wanted. Although I had this incredible upbringing where I was so wanted, so loved, why didn't that person want me? And I felt like I didn't even want to know anymore? Because it kind of ruined.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Yeah.

[Jess]

That.

[Lucy Greenwell]

That perfect childhood suddenly had something else laced in it.

[Jess]

Yeah.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Yeah. Do you want to pause for a bit?

[Jess]

That's okay. For me, it kind of. It did. It broke my little world

[Karim]

of this

[Jess]

perfect little family that I'd been brought up in.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Jess tells me her parents reassure her that nothing's changed, that she's still the same person they constantly trying to tell

[Jess]

me, you know, you're a good person, you know, and as much as anyone tells you that you don't feel like you are. Like, you feel like you're ruse. Your roots are bad, you're, like, rotten. You've come from someone that can discard a baby and have no thoughts or feelings about that.

[Lucy Greenwell]

As a teenager, Jess says she tells her friends that she was found, and they tell their friends, and the story sort of takes on a life of its own.

[Jess]

It was a big deal for my friends and stuff, and it was just that whole constant of, why do you not want to know? Why are you not gonna find out?

[Lucy Greenwell]

For years, she just didn't. But slowly that changes. And by the time she's in her early 20s, she's intrigued by the mystery of her beginning.

[Jess]

And I actually felt a little bit excited about it because I wanted to get to the bottom of it. Just the whole Sherlock Holmes situation of it all. I wanted to figure it all out.

[Lucy Greenwell]

From the very first time I call her, Jess is really open with me because, let's be honest, a total stranger calling you up and telling you that they're obsessed with your origin story must be a bit weird. But she seemed to get it. Why? The mystery of who she is and the questions around it are in some way bigger than just her. And so she's happy to humor me and let me play Holmes to her, Sherlock. But when I first meet her, there really isn't all that much that she can tell me. In the uk, all adopted children have the right to find out where they come from. It's been enshrined in law since the mid-70s. The UN also recognises that children have a right to an identity, to know, as far as possible, who their parents are. But if you start out as a foundling, a lone baby with no backstory, this basic right is denied. There's no official record for foundlings to uncover, no paper trail. When she's 22, Jess decides she wants to see the place where she was found. So she sets off with a friend armed with those newspaper cuttings.

[Jess]

I said, but I'm not 100% sure where the road is, so we might have to just knock on a few doors and hope for the best.

[Lucy Greenwell]

She tells me she remembers feeling intrigue, but also dread, because until now it's all felt very abstract. But by going to the spot where she was left, she's hoping she might glimpse some clue, something that might explain why she was abandoned.

[Jess]

So we kind of just drove round looking for little lanes in the cuttings.

[Lucy Greenwell]

It's variously described as the side of a quiet road, a lonely roadside verge, or the side of a lane near Ipswich. One article gives a more detailed description of how the lane runs between two small villages and how there's a field on one side and a wood on the other. But it's hard to be certain where the place is. There are just so many back lanes nearby, so many fields, so many clumps of woodland, and with no other distinguishing features to go on, they don't manage it. They can't quite figure it out. But by now they've got the bit between their teeth. They spot a bungalow nearby, set back behind a thick privet hedge, and they knock on the door.

[Jess]

This lovely little lady who'd lived in the village all her life, instantly welcomed us in with a cup of tea and a piece of cake.

[Lucy Greenwell]

There are a lot of what ifs in this story, and this is one of them. What if Jess hadn't knocked on this particular door where a woman called Jean lived? Because with Jean, Jess had struck gold.

[Jess]

And she couldn't be more excited because she just remembers every last detail.

[Lucy Greenwell]

She.

[Jess]

She said it was such a hoo ha, you know, there was so many police around in the village. And then obviously the rumors start flying around that there was a baby left down this road. And we all couldn't believe it. We just couldn't believe it.

[Lucy Greenwell]

She tells Jess that people talked about it for weeks afterwards and that there were a few theories circulating about who the baby's mother was.

[Jess]

She said it has to be someone local because no one would have known about that lane. So instantly that's where my mind went.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Jean takes Jess into her back garden

[Jess]

and she says, you nearly got the right lane. She said, it's that one down there. And she pointed, she said, shall we have a drive down there? Should we have a look? I said, yeah, all right then. So she got in my car and she was so excited. It was brilliant, really. She made me excited about it. It was a different feeling altogether.

[Lucy Greenwell]

At this point, Jess tells me she feels like an old fashioned sleuth.

[Jess]

Yeah, we jumped in my car and she went, take the next right. And she said, I know exact spot where it was.

[Lucy Greenwell]

They drive about half a mile to a passing place on the lane, and

[Jess]

she said, that's where you were right there.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Jess has quite strong feelings about the verge. You know when you see flowers on a roadside marking the place where someone's died in a car crash? Well, for Jess, it's the exact opposite, the mirror image. In fact, she almost memorializes this verge because it's the place where she believes her life begins. She once sent me a photo of it with a heart emoji. The fact that it's beautiful and it really is, it matters to her. But being at the verge that day has another effect. It alters how she feels about the fact that she was abandoned. It makes her feel something more like anger.

[Jess]

Of all the places you could have left me, you've left me somewhere that nobody goes, like, unless you were local to that village, like, nobody goes down that lane. Why would you think anyone would have picked me up from there?

[Lucy Greenwell]

She's thinking perhaps whoever left her there didn't necessarily want her to be found.

[Jess]

It wasn't even a road, it's a track. So that in itself is difficult to stomach because it's so remote.

[Lucy Greenwell]

And for the first time in all these years, she says it strikes her that if she hadn't been picked up that morning, she might not have survived. As Jess leaves the verge and says goodbye to Jean, Jean repeats her theory that only someone local could have known about that lane. And then she drops one more vital clue.

[Jess]

She said, I've got my suspicions. And she said, well, there was a couple of nannies in the village, she said, and they weren't from around here. She said, no, I'm sure one of them has something to do with it.

[Lucy Greenwell]

For the police, this is an old case, long forgotten and largely mothballed after Jess was adopted back in 1988. But I reckon there must still be a case file somewhere. I begin making some inquiries of my own and I send off a request to Suffolk Constabulary, asking to see any paperwork they have about the investigation. And while I wait, I try to track down the police officers who are involved. Their names aren't on social media, so I trawl the Electoral register looking for addresses. It seems they all still live in Suffolk and I end up driving around the county, parking in unfamiliar streets and posting letters through front doors. I assume it's going to be straightforward, that there'll be amused, flattered even, to dust off an old and puzzling case. But I'm wrong about that. The detective who is in charge of the case doesn't want to talk about it, and neither do the two other retired officers who also worked on it. I'm struck by this wariness I've touched on for something that happened so long ago. It's only when I start to dig into the laws around child abandonment that I begin to see things more clearly. Now, I know this might sound simplistic, but I simply hadn't thought of this story as a crime. For us as kids, any police involvement was just about helping to reconnect mother and baby, almost like a missing person case. And the police were keen to find the missing mother. But Jess abandonment was still investigated as a crime. The roadside verge was treated like a crime scene. You see, it's an offence to abandon a child under two. If it endangers their life or causes them harm, that's punishable by up to five years in prison. Then there's a broader offence of cruelty to a person under 16, including neglect, ill treatment or abandonment. And for that you could get 10 years. And because we don't in the UK have a statute of limitations for serious crimes, someone can be prosecuted today for abandoning a baby back in 1987. This case was never actually solved. So new information, fresh evidence or a recent forensic technology like DNA could open it up again. You and I know that we don't want. That's absolutely not the motivation.

[Jess]

Yeah, of course, but no, that's not at all. I mean, I don't want that either, so.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Exactly. You know, I know you don't. Neither of us wants that. Yet. Several former police officers seem genuinely concerned that my reporting of this story may have a real life effect. A fresh criminal investigation. All of a sudden, the stakes feel much higher. I check in with Jess. She's still certain that she wants to tell her story and to try and find answers to the questions she's been asking for years.

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[Progressive Insurance Advertiser]

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[Lucy Greenwell]

I write again to all the retired police officers, assuring them that neither Jess nor I are looking to reopen the case, that we're not seeking new evidence. But they don't change their minds. Eventually, I find a fourth former police officer. Initially he says no, but after thinking it over, he agrees to talk because he tells me, Jessica deserves some answers.

[Progressive Insurance Advertiser]

Hello.

[Aldwyn Jones]

Are you. Must be Lucy.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Yes. In his retirement, Aldwyn Jones sits on the committee of a village hall. And so we meet there.

[Aldwyn Jones]

Oh, okay. Thank you.

[Lucy Greenwell]

So we're gonna go into this. Yeah.

[Aldwyn Jones]

Yeah, come in.

[Lucy Greenwell]

He's a former detective chief inspector at Ipswich police station. He's a tall, polite man with glasses and salt and pepper hair.

[Aldwyn Jones]

It happens very rarely in Suffolk. In my experience. Unfortunately, the baby's more likely to have been Found dead than alive. It was a rarity to find the baby alive.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Babies are abandoned intermittently, but more often than not it's their lifeless bodies that are later found. Of the four babies abandoned in Suffolk in 1987, Jess was the only one found alive. What would you have been looking for when you went to the verge?

[Aldwyn Jones]

Well, obvious things to get the feel of the place where it's been left and trying to weigh up. Why would you leave a baby there? Those types.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Aldwyn Jones visits the place where Jess was discovered just a few hours after she'd been taken to hospital.

[Aldwyn Jones]

It's always good practice to go and visit the scene of any major crime. But there could be things forensically that may have been available, such as tire tracks or footprints.

[Lucy Greenwell]

And had you found a footprint or a tyre mark, what would you have done?

[Aldwyn Jones]

Well, they could take a cast. That was how they used to do it in those days. Take a cast and then you can identify the tyre. And then you could, for example, identify the tyre and then they could tell you the make and it gives you a lead. But there was nothing from memory that I can remember like that being found.

[Lucy Greenwell]

He tells me that any potential leads have been washed away.

[Aldwyn Jones]

One thing I remember about that day was the rain and as we went up to it there was a torrential downpour and I couldn't help but think that if this had happened an hour or two ago, the consequences for the baby who had been exposed. Heavy rain

[Lucy Greenwell]

in the first week. Around 20 officers were on the case, doing house to house calls, manning the verge, running vehicle checks and monitoring a dedicated phone line.

[Progressive Insurance Advertiser]

Meanwhile, police have set up an incident room where relatives, friends or anyone with information can talk to a woman police constable. If you can help, ring Ipswich.

[Jess]

That's 0473-610-5579.

[Lucy Greenwell]

It's the 1980s, remember. So the officers are working without any help from CCTV computers or mobile phone records. And investigations using DNA were in their infancy. When the case paperwork arrives from Suffolk Police, it paints a picture of a pretty analogue investigation. There's the appeal poster that was pinned up on notice boards across the county. It carries a photo of Jess taken in hospital when she's a day or so old. She's wearing a pale crochet dress and next to her is a picture of the vest she was found in with with an Adams label showing Adams was a popular kids clothing brand at the time. I'm also sent two hand drawn maps with a small cross marking the spot that Jess was found. And several Ordnance Survey Maps of the area with handwritten notes and markings on. There's a list of the 18 house to house inquiries that were made in the days after. There's something else that arrives with the documents. Some new press cuttings. These ones were written by a young reporter just starting out on the local paper.

[Terry Hunt]

I'm Terry Hunt. I was the editor of the East Anglian Daily times newspaper between 1996 and 2017. When the baby was found in 1987, I was working in the newsroom at the newspaper.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Terry Hunt still remembers the call coming in.

[Terry Hunt]

I looked around the newsroom and the newsroom was empty. Even in 1987 we didn't run on lots of staff. I didn't have any option really. We had to go out. So I grabbed a photographer and we headed out. I think there was one policeman standing there.

[Lucy Greenwell]

How would you describe what it looked like, that place?

[Terry Hunt]

Just very, very lonely. Very lonely, even for Suffolk. Very lonely. Which made me think it was strange. There was a bit of muddled thinking on behalf of whoever. Whoever left it there. That was my initial thought, that I don't know what the thinking is. Why didn't the person who left it leave it somewhere where they knew it was going to be found?

[Lucy Greenwell]

Everyone, the journalists, the police, even us young kids, though we can't quite put our finger on why we all think there's something strange about this story.

[Aldwyn Jones]

Most babies are abandoned, often in places where they can be found readily. Public toilets, public libraries, hospitals, near police stations. That's always been the pattern of abandoned babies.

[Lucy Greenwell]

That's interesting. So there was something unusual from the get go?

[Aldwyn Jones]

Probably, yes. Yeah.

[Lucy Greenwell]

The police did receive some tip offs. There was a green Austin car seen parked nearby at a Crossroads at 8:25 that morning. The car's engine was running and a woman was spotted at the wheel, covering her face with her hands. There was a sighting of a second woman seen a few minutes later, parked in a different lane not far from the verge. Two calls came into the dedicated phone line.

[Terry Hunt]

One was just silence and one was a local, a woman with a local accent, a Suffolk accent, saying words to the effect of I didn't mean it.

[Lucy Greenwell]

A week later, a parcel of clothes was sent anonymously to the hospital, addressed simply to baby Heather. Inside were five dresses and a romper suit. As the search for the baby's mother continued, the district medical officer was quoted in the press saying the mother is probably tired, exhausted. He says she's at risk of hemorrhage and infection. At risk of infection. Tired and exhausted, aged eight. My Focus had been firmly on the infant. I couldn't have fathomed the emotional cost of carrying a baby for nine months. Feeling it flutter and kick and then giving birth. There can't be many lonelier situations. I hadn't considered what those final moments must have felt like. Dressing the baby, traveling to the Verge, laying it down and walking away.

[Terry Hunt]

Sometimes I would cut through that little lane and I would always slow down and kind of try to remember where the baby was left. And then I would think, I wonder what happened to that little baby.

[Lucy Greenwell]

In 2010, after Jess visits the Verge and gets that tip off from Jean about the local nannies, she tells me she gets in touch with the police. One of the detectives agrees to meet her in a supermarket cafe. He tells her everything he can remember. The car sightings, the strange phone calls, door to door inquiries, much of the information I've seen in the police files. He tells her about the frustration they all felt when they got nowhere. This detective, he's one of the former police officers who didn't want to do an interview for the podcast. But he does send me a note about one other thing. He said to Jess she should try and trace the young lady that found her that morning. It chimes with what Jess has already heard from Jean. He's telling Jess that if she wants to know more about what happened that day, she should try and find this former nanny. And he tells me he hands her something. I left her with a press cutting

[Aldwyn Jones]

so that she had the young lady's details.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Jess tells me she's never seen this particular press cutting before. It's new to her. It's the interview which Terry Hunt did when he spoke to the young nanny who found Jess. And it includes a photograph of her

[Jess]

and then underneath it said her name, her full name.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Armed with a name, Jess and her sister Laura go online. Laura posts a message on a family reunion site. Does anyone remember an 18 year old nanny who found a baby in Suffolk in 87? And Jess turns to Facebook.

[Jess]

I just bombarded every single one I came across with the same name, roughly the same age, with the same message. It was a copy and paste scenario. I think at least 20 people got that message with the same name and surname.

[Lucy Greenwell]

She says she keeps it simple. She names the village where she was found and asks them, did you ever live there? Most never reply. A few get back to her saying, no, sorry, they've never even even been to Suffolk. But then two days later, a message pings in. It reads, yes, I did live there. I was a nanny. There, does that help, Jennifer?

[Jess]

I then replied and said, thanks for replying. Did you find a baby abandoned in the village by any chance, Jess?

[Lucy Greenwell]

Yes. Why? That's a long time ago. Jess explains the that she is that baby and that she's looking for information about her birth, that she wants to find out more. Jennifer replies oh, gosh, I'm so very glad you're okay. The last I knew you were called Heather. On the grass verge there you were wrapped in a blanket or sheet. Sorry, I can't remember exactly. With a bag of some sort. Undo. You were taken to the hospital and I never saw you again, I'm afraid. I did a TV appeal for your mum to come forward, but I was never kept in the loop as to what happened. Jess writes back, she's certainly doing fine.

[Jess]

SHE TYPES I've been trying to track you down for quite some time. Just to say thanks, really, and that you saved my life. I'm very lucky to be here.

[Lucy Greenwell]

She goes on to ask, I have

[Jess]

a newspaper article with a picture of you on the front. Did you get questioned by the police a lot? I've met one of them and they said they spoke to you. Thanks so much, Jess.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Oh, you're so very welcome. Right time, right place. The police were a bit full on to begin with. It was a big thing in a little rural area. I'm glad to have been one of the first people to have met you. If I'd been asked, I would have called you Rebecca. Heather never seemed you.

[Jess]

When I read that out loud to my mum and dad, we all just went. That is such an odd thing to say because. Why would you say that?

[Lucy Greenwell]

I think I've got it here.

[Jess]

You got it?

[Lucy Greenwell]

Yeah. If I had been asked, if I

[Jess]

had been asked, I would have called you Rebecca. Yeah.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Two exclamation marks. Heather never seemed you.

[Jess]

Heather never seen me see that. I think that's even more weirder that

[Lucy Greenwell]

she's got a version of you.

[Jess]

Yeah.

[Lucy Greenwell]

In her mind. Never.

[Jess]

Never seemed you like. Never seemed me like. You don't know me if you just found me. You don't know me then, do you? I then replied and said, a lot of people in the village still think you have something to do with it for some reason.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Next time on Foundling.

[Jess]

If I. If I'd have known it was going to be as traumatic as it has been, I probably wouldn't have carried on digging.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Do you really mean that?

[Jess]

You turn absolutely 100, you turn back the clock. Yeah. And I dug a little bit, not realizing that tiny little bit of a digging would turn into this huge pit of problems and a spindle of lies.

[Lucy Greenwell]

Foundling was reported by me, Lucy Greenwell. It was written by me and by Katie Gunning, who was also the series producer. The theme music was composed by Tom Kinsella. Sound design and additional music was by Rowan Bishop. Podcast artwork was by Blythe Walker Sibthorpe. The development producer was Jess Swinburne. The narrative editor was Garry Marshall. The editor is Jasper Corbett. Thank you for listening to Foundling. We hope you're enjoying the podcast so far. You can listen to all six episodes today by subscribing to the Observer. By subscribing, not only do you get all our podcasts before anyone else, you also get access to our premium newsletters, exclusive offers from our partners Mubi and I, escape tickets to our events, and much, much more. Subscribe [e-mail] subscribe or via the link in the Show Notes. Subscribe today for £1 for your first month. Tortoise investigates.

[Karim]

Hi everyone, this is Karim, the voice of Simon Fairchild from the Magnus archives, and today I want to talk to you about Boost Mobile. Some things quietly drain you like an expensive phone bill, trapping your money month after month. Here's a quick money Stop paying a carrier tax when you bring your own phone and Switch to boost mobile's $25 Unlimited Forever plan, you can unlock up to $600 in savings. That's money that belongs in your life, not trapped in a phone bill. Reclaim those savings for something you're actually into an EMF meter, a thermal camera, or whatever strange corner of the universe you're currently exploring. Visit boostmobile.com to unlock your savings and take back control. After 30 gigabytes, customers may experience slower speeds. Customers $25 per month, as long as they remain active on the Boost Mobile Unlimited plan. Boost Mobile January 2026 survey comparing average annual payments of AT and T Verizon and T mobile customers to 12 months on the Boost Mobile Unlimited plan. For full offer details, visit boostmobile.com.

[Progressive Insurance Advertiser]

Y falsos negativos la preva de Cologuard nor REM Plaza la colonoscopia empacientes de alto riezgo nous escologuard si as tenido adenomas ctnsiertos syndrome es hereditarius o unhistorial personalo familiar de cancer de colon paramas informacion en cologardpunto. Com Diagonal Preva this episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game, shifting a little money here, a little there, and hoping it all works out well. With the name your price tool from Progressive, you can be a better budgeter and potentially lower your insurance bill too. You tell Progressive what you want to pay for car insurance and they'll help you find options within your budget. Try it [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates Price and coverage match limited by state law, not available in all states.

[Jess]

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