Silence on Dead Baby At Excalibur

Catching up on the local papers that accumulated while I was in Florida, I was stunned to find a shocking little story buried inside the local section of the R-J several days ago.

Hotel workers at Excalibur found a dead newborn boy -- placenta and umbilical cord intact -- in the trash in a public bathroom. The corpse was wrapped in a pillowcase and stuffed in an Excalibur gift bag.

The baby was found on Mother's Day, May 11. The news seems to have broken about it on Monday evening on the Las Vegas Sun's website with this piece. There was that short, obligatory piece in the Review-Journal the next day. The Associated Press picked up the tale, too, giving it a little more attention.

And that's it. Nobody in the local media has followed up since even though, according to the AP story, "police say their best hope may be the public."

I'm not sure why this bothers me so much. It just seems like a bigger deal than has been made of it, especially considering I've lived in cities where abandoned baby corpses have become front-page news for days. Here's one in perhaps the most popular tourist corridor in the world, and nobody seems to much care.