A woman has pleaded guilty to killing her newborn son at an Air Force hospital nearly 40 years after the baby’s body was discovered.
The deceased infant was found wrapped in linens inside a laundry bin at Ponds Laundry in Wichita Falls, Texas, on August 4, 1988, shortly after authorities believe the baby was born. The linens came from the hospital at the nearby Sheppard Air Force Base.
The newborn’s death remained unsolved for decades until cold case investigators identified Tammy Sue Kerns, 58, as the infant’s mother with the help of forensic genealogy, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas.
Kerns, 57, pleaded guilty on September 9 to a second-degree murder charge, the office announced in a Monday, September 14, news release. She had previously been charged via information with “unlawfully killing a newborn male infant with malice aforethought.”
Her guilty plea comes after investigators with the Air Force revisited the case in 2015, according to prosecutors.
The newborn’s tissue samples were later analyzed through advanced DNA sequencing by Othram, a forensic laboratory specializing in genetic genealogy, in 2022. The testing led investigators to the baby’s biological father, prosecutors said.
Following the DNA breakthrough investigators located Kerns, who had been stationed at Sheppard Air Force Base when the baby was born, according to prosecutors.
Kerns admitted she was the baby’s biological mother while speaking with Air Force investigators in May 2025, prosecutors said.
She allegedly told investigators that she hid her pregnancy.
According to her plea papers, Kerns went into labor during her night shift at Sheppard Air Force Base. She allegedly admitted to hiding and locking herself in an x-ray room, giving birth alone.
When Kerns delivered the infant, prosecutors said “she placed her hand over his mouth until he stopped crying and/or breathing” and then “severed the umbilical cord from (the baby) and the placenta and wrapped the cord around his body.”
Kerns is accused of wrapping the deceased infant in hospital linens and putting his body in a laundry bin before returning to work.
According to prosecutors, Kerns agreed to a voluntary DNA test that confirmed she was the baby’s mother.
“Forensic genealogy shattered the silence surrounding this crime and revealed the truth the defendant hid for nearly forty years: she deliberately and maliciously murdered her newborn baby,” U.S. Attorney Ryan Raybould, of the Northern District of Texas, said in a statement. “This plea is a direct result of relentless investigative work and scientific advances that allowed us to identify both parents and bring justice to an infant who was denied his first breath.
Information on Kerns’ legal representation wasn’t immediately available.
As part of her plea agreement, she’s facing at least five years in prison and up to 20 years in prison.
