How one woman's questions may have reopened a 34-year-old cold case
– 5 min read
Holly Lovings was looking for more information about cold cases from her hometown when she discovered a particularly disturbing case was sitting in KSP archives.
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When Holly Lovings started asking questions about a decades-old cold case in 2022, she had no idea that her inquiry might be the spark that would finally bring an arrest.
But emails suggest that's exactly what happened.
This week, Kentucky State Police announced the arrest of 55-year-old Jennifer Cummins from Virginia, in connection with the 1991 death of an infant known as Baby Jane Doe. The baby was discovered at the Richmond Landfill in Madison County after being placed in a dumpster on the Eastern Kentucky University campus.
34 years later: woman arrested in connection with baby’s death at Kentucky landfill
More than three decades after an infant’s body was discovered at a Richmond landfill, Kentucky State Police have made an arrest. “I’m Shay McAlister, and this is Shay Informed: an independent, ad-free platform dedicated to honest journalism with compassion and clarity. Are you new here? Sign up for the free
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What makes this story even more remarkable is the role a former child abuse investigator played in bringing the case back into investigators' focus.
In May 2022, Holly Lovings filed a formal open records request with Kentucky State Police Post 7. She'd been browsing the KSP cold case website and stumbled across the Baby Jane Doe case, and something about it wouldn't let her go.
Holly had spent nearly a decade conducting child abuse investigations for the Commonwealth of Kentucky. She knew what it meant when a case went cold. She knew officers, much like social workers, were stretched thin with high case loads and little time. Still, she was surprised when she learned the status of this particular investigation.
According to an email she shared with me, the case file wasn't even at the post. It was sitting in archives- and had been since 2007.
