The girl’s short life is recalled every day by one local investigator.

Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Jerry Sauers has been reviewing details of the case since Dec. 31, 2003, when a group of students found the girl, who would come to be called “Baby Allison,” wrapped in a bag inside the 55-gallon drum behind their school.

“(The investigation file) is the first thing I see every morning,” Sauers said Thursday. “It sits on my desk every day.”

No one has been charged in connection with the death of the full-term infant, but investigators haven’t lost hope.

“We are never going to say (the case is) closed,” said Lancaster County Assistant District Attorney Heidi Eakin, who is investigating the case with state police. “That little girl belonged to somebody.”

Genetic testing provided somewhat of a break in the case recently, when lab results revealed it was “highly unlikely” the baby or her mother were from the Amish or Mennonite communities. Genetic profiling also determined the baby was white, predominantly of European ancestry and not born of incest.

“That’s more knowledge than we had two months ago, and obviously that’s a good thing,” Sauers said.

No one in the Plain sect was ever a suspect, Sauers said, but several Plain women were interviewed because of where the baby was found.

“The baby was on (Amish) school property, so that was part of standard procedure,” he said.

Baby Allison was discovered, her throat slashed, behind Sycamore School on Weaver Road, and her death was ruled a homicide. The umbilical cord was still attached to her lifeless 6-pound body. Investigators determined she was born between Dec. 24 and Dec. 29, 2003.

Sauers estimated 20 to 25 suspects have been investigated since the slaying. Some were questioned outside Lancaster County, he said.

“They were all locals at the time (Allison was killed), but some moved,” he said. “I had to track some down out of state and eliminate them” as suspects.

Investigators expect more advances will be made in the case but said the key to solving it may lie with the public.

“It’s hard to believe somebody out there doesn’t know something,” Eakin said. “Some people may have (useful) information and not even know it.”

Investigators are asking anyone who knows of a woman who was pregnant in December 2003 — but wasn’t seen with a baby after birth — to contact them at 299-7650.

“We vigorously follow up every single lead,” Eakin said, “and we follow them to the end.”

The baby was given the name Allison by Lester Cramer, a 62-year-old truck driver from Willow Street. Cramer paid for the child’s burial and regularly visits her grave at Conestoga Memorial Park.

“I haven’t missed a weekend since she was buried,” Cramer said Thursday night. “She’d be 3 years old now. Anyone with kids knows three years is a blessing to any family.”

Cramer, a father of two daughters, said his family and his experiences as a paramedic prompted him to pay for Allison’s burial and tend to her grave.

“She should have her own space,” he said. “This kid was just alone. The people who should have cared for her most didn’t.”

After three years, the slaying still angers Cramer.

“There are one or two people that killed a kid walking around scot-free,” he said.

For Christmas, Cramer said, he put holiday decorations and flowers by Allison’s grave. He noticed several other people did the same.

“It’s nice to see others haven’t forgotten,” he said.


Brett Hambright’s e-mail address is bhambright@lnpnews.com.