LONDON - Two years after a newborn baby was found abandoned on a freezing winter's night, London police look set to shelve their investigation despite having discovered that she is the sibling of two other foundlings.
Hospital staff named the little girl Elsa, after the character in the Disney film "Frozen".
She is believed to have been less than an hour old when she was discovered in a shopping bag on a bleak pathway near a busy east London road on January 18, 2024.
Her siblings were abandoned nearby in similar circumstances in 2017 and 2019.
The tragic mystery, combined with the fear that the mother may be being held captive somewhere, has shaken locals and cast a shadow over the areas of Plaistow and East Ham where the babies were discovered.
In a shocking development last June, police revealed that DNA testing had shown that all three children have the same parents.
They warned that they could not "discount" the possibility of a fourth child in the future who "may not be so fortunate as Elsa and her siblings".
The case has baffled police who began investigating after the first newborn baby, Harry, was found wrapped in a blanket in a park in Plaistow early on September 17, 2017.
Less than two years later on the evening of January 31, 2019, the second, Roman, was discovered wrapped in a blanket and placed in a shopping bag in another park two kilometres away.
Despite extensive inquiries, police now say all current leads have been "exhausted".
Officers have consulted profilers and reviewed hundreds of hours of surveillance footage.
Door-to-door inquiries were narrowed to just 400 homes and residents who were black, the same ethnicity as the babies, were even asked to provide a DNA sample.
A £20,000 (around $26,900) reward for information has gone unclaimed.
Police will formally decide this month whether to pause the inquiry.