DNA identifies mother of 2 abandoned babies

BERLIN (AP) The mother of two babies found abandoned on either side of the Germany-Netherlands border has been identified through DNA testing as a German woman, police said Tuesday.

Police tracked down the 25-year-old woman living near Cologne as the likely mother of the children after receiving numerous tips, Cologne police spokesman Christoph Gilles said. Once confronted, she acknowledged she was the mother of the two children and that she abandoned them. A DNA test has now confirmed her admission, he said.

Charges have not been filed but the investigation is not yet concluded, Gilles said. He refused to give further details about the woman.

The first baby, a girl swaddled in a towel and blanket, was found on October 20, 2011, in Huerth, near Cologne. A newborn boy was found this June, lying in grass wrapped in a white blanket in the Dutch town of Roermond, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) away from Huerth.

The girl's DNA was tested and entered into a databank. That initially didn't help identify the mother, but Dutch authorities then found that it matched the baby boy they found in June when they were trying to identify him.

After media reported widely about the two babies, police received many tips and were able to track down the mother, Gilles said.

Both children are now in foster care, one in Germany and the other in the Netherlands. There may be a possibility of bringing the siblings together at some point, "but bureaucratically that's a bit complicated," Gilles said.