An Iberia Parish grand jury returned a true bill this week against a woman for the 1994 death of her infant daughter, who was abandoned in a trash barrel near a Jeanerette car wash.

Sonia S. Charles, 52, was indicted on one count of second-degree murder in the death of Baby Jane Doe, who was found in a 55-gallon trash barrel behind a car wash in Jeanerette on Jan. 24, 1994. An autopsy showed the infant was alive when placed in the dumpster, but died of hypothermia later.

The case first came back to light in 2018 after members of the Justice for Unsolved Murder Victims Project, a local effort to bring attention to cases left languishing, published a flyer online seeking information in the case. That led to interest from national media, including “Dateline NBC” and former prosecutor Nancy Grace, who has done several segments on the case.

Evidence from the original crime scene had been stored in the Jeanerette Police Department’s custody for decades. Although an exhumation of the infant’s body had been considered, IPSO Det. Scott Hotard, who handled cold cases for the office under the previous administration, discovered that the Acadiana Criminalistics Laboratory still had placental material from the case preserved. The laboratory reexamined evidence from the case and developed a DNA profile which matched with a family relative’s sample in a DNA database.

A DNA sample was later taken from Charles and proved to be a match. She was subsequently arrested in September 2019 and charged with one count of first-degree murder.