I'd guess that everybody involved (including the coroner's office) tacitly understands that even if the baby was deliberately or negligently killed, there's very little chance after 20 years of finding evidence of who did it, in order to demonstrate guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. And if there's no chance of a conviction, there's no benefit to anybody from reopening the investigation.

The scientific case about infant opioid poisoning in general is a separate issue, of course. But assigning blame in this particular case doesn't have any bearing on that.

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pickleRick243 4 hours ago | parent [-]

> And if there's no chance of a conviction, there's no benefit to anybody from reopening the investigation.

It's probably true that without a chance of conviction, standard protocol dictates that public resources should not be expended on reopening the investigation. But I was also heavily distracted while reading the article, scanning optimistically for the happy (under the circumstances) ending where justice is served. I certainly don't think there is "no benefit to anybody".

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teraflop 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Serious question: if the chance of evidence leading to a convistion is very very small, what would be the benefit of opening an investigation? Just to go through the motions on principle? And what would they even investigate?

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j-bos 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

One benefit is demonstrating at least a facade of seeking justice. Also, obscuring a crime for personal benefit is itself a crime.

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knowitnone3 2 hours ago | parent [-]

so cops driving around is good enough, they don't have to actually catch criminals because it's it facade that really matters.

	▲	happosai an hour ago \| parent [-]
		It's security theater, like airport security where red teams succeed in 95% cases https://abcnews.go.com/US/exclusive-undercover-dhs-tests-fin...

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brianpan 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It's a cost-benefit analysis like many other things. There are limited resources, they should be spent on investigating cases that have a chance of getting closed.

Cold cases might get reopened because of advances in technology or other changes over time.

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mindslight an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

The "happy ending" where one of the parents and their three other kids find out that the other parent likely killed the older brother they never met? That doesn't sound very happy to me, but maybe we have different definitions of happy?

When I tried reading into the causes of so-called SIDS it seemed like at least some of the cases were a catch-all diagnosis that included cases where parents inadvertently killed their infants (eg co-sleeping and rolling onto them). Fundamentally I think there often isn't much upside to fully fleshing out the truth of cases where parents have already paid the heaviest price.

	▲	BLKNSLVR 24 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Man, SIDS. It's specifically non-specific, but the worry it causes is quite specific. My daughter, as a baby, always managed to find a way to sleep on her stomach. Wouldn't sleep on her back, but almost magically by comparison would fall asleep lying on her stomach (face to one side or the other, not straight down, obviously - I hope). We tried various combinations of devices, arrangements of pillows and cushions, tight wraps, to keep her lying on her back, but babies are remarkably, if involuntarily, wilful (or she was, anyway, and remains to this day). I worry about very few things, but for the first few nights we'd regularly get up to check on her, and literally be holding our breath waiting for her to expel hers. Out of necessity the every-parents-SIDS-fear, from allowing the baby to sleep on their stomach, had to be removed from our psyche so that we could continue to function day-to-day. Said baby is now, thankfully, a semi-healthily functional teenager. As functional as teenagers get anyway :)
	▲	lmm 30 minutes ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		> The "happy ending" where one of the parents and their three other kids find out that the other parent likely killed the older brother they never met? That doesn't sound very happy to me, but maybe we have different definitions of happy? While "happy" isn't the word I'd use, that seems better than knowing that this could happen to any baby at any time and nothing would be done.
	▲	maxbond 25 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		We don't know it was the parents. Could've been a babysitter. Could've been a grandparent. New parents often have help.