Detectives described finding remains of aborted child

The New Republic has a story on The Rise of DIY Abortions which features Jennie Linn McCormack and the story of how she aborted her 5-month-old using abortion pills she ordered online.

The last page includes quotes from the detectives who found the body:

Before I left Pocatello, I met two detectives who participated in the McCormack investigation. They work just a wall away from the evidence locker where the remains of the fetus are still stored; because the legal proceedings are ongoing, they cannot be released. “We see dead bodies, daily, weekly, in all different stages,” Detective Brian McClure told me. “But seeing a recognizable baby in a garbage bag, frozen, outside, in a garbage pile, decomposing ...”

“I wouldn’t wish anyone to that scene or investigation,” says Detective Val Wadsworth, a father of four. “We unwrapped it and released it to the funeral home, and the next day was the autopsy. The funeral director who was there said it was the worst smell he’d smelled in his thirty-five years of the funeral home. ... I can’t imagine what it did to her, to have that baby right underneath you for so long, trying to sleep with it there. When they had it thawed out and laying on the table, it was just sad. Sad feeling. Sad little pathetic face. It was just terrible.”