'Baby Mary' investigation earns Uniontown trooper recognition
A Uniontown state trooper has received special recognition for re-examining and resolving a 10-year-old murder case.
On Jan. 15, the Law Enforcement Agency Directors of Western Pennsylvania (LEAD) held its annual awards ceremony in Pittsburgh, where it recognized outstanding performance in law enforcement to 16 agents, officers, troopers, deputy sheriffs and prosecutors.
One of the recipients was Trooper James A. Pierce.
"It's very nice to be recognized for the work the state police do," Pierce said of the recognition. The ceremony was special in light of the recent killing of state police Trooper Paul G. Richey this month in Venango County, as well as Pittsburgh Police Officers Eric G. Kelly, Stephen J. Mayhle and Paul J. Sciullo II, who were shot to death responding to a domestic call in Stanton Heights last year.
A North Union Township native, Pierce joined the state police in 1993 at the Troop A barracks in Greensburg then moved back to Uniontown at the Troop B barracks in 1996. Two years later, he became a criminal investigator.
"It's satisfying to work a big case, to put a lot of time into it and see it come to a conclusion," Pierce said.
As a criminal investigator, Pierce works bigger cases involving felonies, homicides, sexual assaults, frauds and whatever else comes up. If there is time, he is assigned unsolved cases.
Pierce investigated the Baby Mary case, that of an infant whose body was found in Cove Run Creek off of Yauger Hollow Road in North Union in 2000.
While the case is still open and Pierce could not go into the details about the investigation, he said that it took him two years to work on the case that was very trying and brought out many of the frustrations that come with criminal investigations.
No arrests had been made when Pierce took up the case in February 2007 and began re-interviewing suspects.
Believing the mother of the infant was from the area, he expanded his search. In June 2008, he interviewed a state inmate who was living in the area when the death occurred.
That inmate told him that Warren Bircher, 35, of Adah had said at a party in 2000 that one of his girlfriends was pregnant and that he was going to put the baby in a bag and drown it in the river.
Further interviews provided evidence that Bircher helped Sarah Hawk of Uniontown deliver the baby and put her in the creek, officials said. DNA tests confirmed that Hawk was the mother, authorities said.
Hawk pleaded guilty to third-degree homicide in return for cooperating in the prosecution of Bircher, her former brother-in-law. Bircher is awaiting trial. Hawk was 16 when she had the baby.
"It's tough putting the case together," said Pierce, as he would find promising leads that ended with no DNA matches to the baby. "There were a lot of dead ends. I was relieved that arrests were made after so many years."
