Judge Selects Burial Site for Newborn Baby Found Dead at Electric Forest

Editor’s Note: This article contains graphic details that some readers may find distressing.A judge has approved a volunteer’s plan to bury the unidentified baby girl who was found dead in a portable toilet at Michigan’s Electric Forest music festival in June, selecting a grave site at a cemetery in Jenison.

A worker for the company that supplies the festival’s portable toilets found the body on June 28, the final day of the event, while servicing units in a camping area at the Double JJ Resort.She was born alive and was viable at birth, Michigan State Police confirmed in July.

The judge granted permission to Oceana County local Travis Byrnes to arrange the burial at Georgetown Cemetery in the city of Jenison.The ruling came after two people separately asked the court for the right to handle the child’s funeral, according to local reports.

Byrnes will cover every cost himself, according to the order, and he cannot seek repayment from the government, the baby’s estate or any relatives who might one day come forward.Once the court approves wording for an inscription, he must also buy and install a permanent grave marker at his own expense.

The rival petition came from Leroy Strait, whose plan also offered a funeral service, a lasting burial plot and a marker, all without public money.Both of the proposed sites would leave investigators free to pursue the case if the girl is eventually identified, but Georgetown, the judge concluded, would be easier for relatives to reach should they wish to visit the grave someday.

The court wrote that there was “no wrong choice” between them, and that location tipped the decision.The judge also noted that neither man was connected to the child, and that neither stood to gain financially from being named to oversee the burial.

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