Cold case breakthrough: Nancy Trottier charged in 1981 baby death

DNA and genetic genealogy finally cracked a 45-year-old Valley City mystery. Nancy J. Trottier, 65, was charged after investigators linked her to the baby girl found in a wooded area near the Valley City State College campus in 1981, a child the Valley City police later nicknamed Rebecca.

The infant was discovered on April 16, 1981, in a secluded part of campus with a plastic bag or sheet over her head and the umbilical cord still attached. An autopsy found she had been dead for about 24 to 72 hours and died of acute asphyxia consistent with suffocation. For decades, the case stood as one of the state’s most haunting unsolved deaths.

The turning point came only after investigators returned to the evidence with modern tools. Authorities exhumed the child’s remains in 2019 to collect DNA, and by 2020 the infant was reburied at Hillside Cemetery in a ceremony that drew local officials. A genetic genealogy report later pointed investigators toward possible relatives, and Trottier, who attended Valley City State College from 1978 through 1982, was interviewed in October 2021. She allegedly told investigators, “Maybe it was me,” and “It could be, maybe it was me.” Trottier’s husband’s DNA was collected in December 2021, and a forensic report in June 2023 reportedly found it was 3.481 quadrillion times more likely that the baby was the biological child of Trottier and her husband than an unrelated individual. Investigators also said Trottier’s DNA matched tissue paper recovered from the scene.

Barnes County State’s Attorney Tonya Duffy and North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley announced the charge in Valley City on April 13, saying several law-enforcement agencies helped produce the breakthrough. Wrigley said it had taken many investigators over more than four decades to reach an arrest, while Valley City Police Lt. Dana Rustebakke credited former chiefs and officers who kept pressing for answers even after the case had gone cold. Former chief Dean Ross had publicly said in 2020 that he hoped someone would eventually come forward.

Trottier was arrested April 7 in Sun Lakes, Arizona, and remains in custody at the Stutsman County Correctional Center in Jamestown. Judge Nicholas Thornton set bail at $2 million surety or $750,000 cash, and her next court date is May 21 at 1 p.m. Defense attorney Luke Heck has disputed prosecutors’ characterization of the evidence, setting up a contested case that now returns a long-buried Valley City tragedy to open court.