Just 12 days before the 21st anniversary of the “Baby Michael” case, an arrest has been made and a Burke County woman charged with murdering a newborn.

On March 3, 1999, a plastic trash bag was tossed from a moving vehicle onto the side of Canady Pond Road in southern Cumberland County, according to the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office.

Hours later, a soldier driving by saw the bag and what appeared to be a doll inside. Instead, it was the body of a baby boy not even 24 hours old with the umbilical cord still attached.

[Baby Michael: The case that haunts investigators]

Sheriff’s Office detectives determined that the child died of blunt force trauma.

Then-Sheriff Moose Butler publicly pleaded for the parents to come forward. When no one did, he and his staff made plans for a proper burial.

The child was dubbed “Baby Michael” after the patron saint of law enforcement officers.

A funeral was held March 30, 1999, at Hair’s Chapel Free Will Holiness Church. Baby Michael was buried in the church cemetery.

Detectives have continued trying to solve the case and got a break when DNA evidence was sent to a forensic genealogy service. The results identified a family line, according to a news release Thursday from the Sheriff’s Office.

Detectives traveled to Burke County to interview a woman that they thought was Michael’s mother. During the interview, Deborah Riddle O’Conner, 54, told detectives that she was the mother, the release said.

O’Connor was arrested and brought to Cumberland County, where she was charged with first-degree murder and held at the Cumberland County Detention Center under no bond. She will have her first appearance in court at 2:30 p.m. Friday, according to the Sheriff’s Office.