DEAD, ABANDONED, BUT NOT ALONE; POLICE, BURIAL GROUP ATTEND TO BABY JANE DOE.

Byline: Lisa Van Proyen Daily News Staff Writer

To the coroner, she's known as Baby Jane Doe, the first infant found dead and abandoned this year in Los Angeles County.

All that detectives know about the 8-pound, fair-skinned newborn is a transient found her in a duffel bag in the trash behind an International House of Pancakes restaurant on Laurel Canyon Boulevard in North Hollywood.

``This is going to be a hard one to work,'' Detective Harold Castrillo of the Los Angeles Police Department's Juvenile Division, Abused Child Unit said last week. ``Our best leads come from the public and hospitals that call in - and nobody's called.''

If nobody claims the body of the full-term baby, she will be handed over to the Garden of Angels, a Yucaipa, Calif.-based group that donates burials befitting children, complete with teddy bears in their tiny casket, a poetry reading and the release of white doves.

``Everyone in this world deserves to be known and have a first name. And they should have an opportunity to touch someone's life,'' said Debi Faris, who founded Garden of Angels. ``Nobody should ever be known as a number.''

The Los Angeles County Coroner's Office refers to her as Jane Doe No. 11 - the 11th unidentified female so far this year.

Detectives say solving these crimes is especially difficult without the public's help. They are looking for someone who recently gave birth but is suspiciously without a baby. They ask that anyone with information call [phone] or Detective Headquarters at [phone] after hours.

Even for seasoned coroner investigators, ``throwaway babies'' are among the most difficult deaths to understand.

``I've seen babies cast aside in India and Vietnam, but it's not supposed to happen in the United States,'' said Doyle Tolbert, an investigator for the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office.

Baby Jane Doe was the first baby abandoned and found dead in a trash bin this year. All of last year, there were four unclaimed babies found dead - less than the 15 in 1997.

``Why anyone would do anything like this - it's hard for us to comprehend. It really affects the people working here. It's too close to home,'' said Scott Carrier, a Coroner's Office spokesman.

Born alive

Baby Jane Doe appears to have been born alive. Determining the cause of death will take a few weeks, and investigators will perform DNA and other tests in an effort to track her parents, officials said.

But chances are next to nil that her family will ever be found, detectives said.

She is among more than 100 unclaimed bodies found every year countywide.

In 1998, there were 164 unclaimed bodies - including children and adults - sent to the Los Angeles County morgue for cremation, Tolbert said.

Forty more were sent to a veterans cemetery for burial after their families could not be found and they were instead claimed by the military. Forty-seven other unclaimed bodies had an obvious estate that could pay for burials, Tolbert said.

So far this year, the Coroner's Office has handled about 40 unclaimed bodies.

If no one claims Baby Jane Doe, the Garden of Angels will pick her up in a crocheted blanket. As with the 35 other children she has buried within nearly three years, Faris will take a few moments with the child before transporting her to a mortuary.

Without Garden of Angels, the unclaimed infants would be buried in a mass grave, identified only by a coroner's case number.

Garden of Angels makes sure that each baby is given a name. With the child who was found April 25, Faris has contacted a detective on the case and asked to name the child.

Next, she will prepare for a funeral attended by up to 100 people who happen to spot a Garden of Angels child through the local newspaper obituary listings.

``They're listed by first name only. I told people to watch the newspapers. If they see a first name only, it's a Garden of Angels baby,'' Faris said.

Tolbert has attended some of these baby funerals, and he recalls how sometimes as many as 100 people show up, with songs and prayers for an infant they didn't know and who really had nothing.

For many of those who attend, it's difficult to understand the reasoning behind the fatal abandonment.

They can include teen-age girls who wanted to hide their pregnancy, homeless parents, mothers on drugs or sick with AIDS or other illnesses. Sometimes they are infants conceived through incest and rape, Faris said.

``They think that they've gotten rid of their problem. We've got to start realizing that these little babies are human beings,'' Faris said.