Kids found baby stabbed to death in 1994, IN cops say. Parents now identified
More than three decades after a baby was discovered dead in a trash can, she now has a proper name, Indiana authorities announced.
Officers in Franklin said in a July 14 news briefing the parents of Baby Hope have now been identified, marking a monumental moment in what became a cold case.
On April 13, 1994, two children rummaging through a trash bin found the remains of the child who had been fatally stabbed, Franklin Police Chief Kirby Cochran said in the news briefing streamed by WTHR.
Authorities were unable to determine the identity of the child or who her parents were. Eventually, the case went cold.
With help from the community, the child was given the name Baby Hope by police. Donations poured in to give the infant a proper burial, and officials said 150 people came to her funeral.
The case was reopened with fresh eyes in 2019, and authorities began utilizing DNA technology in their investigation, the police chief said.
Baby Hope’s mother was identified as Cheryl Dawn Larson, who died in 2018, Cochran said. Her husband, Richard Larson, was determined to not have fathered the child.
Paul Richard Shepherd, according to police, was identified as Baby Hope’s father through additional testing and interviews. He has cooperated with the investigation.
Honoring the name given to the baby by the community, Shepherd named his daughter Hope Shepherd, police said.
Charges will not be filed, according to investigators, who said an investigation is ongoing.
“This is not a closed case,” Lt. Chris Tennell said. “But we needed to share this information with the community. While we remain deeply saddened by the tragic and unjust loss of Baby Hope, we are grateful to finally achieve some degree of closure after 31 years.”
Local news outlets were given a statement by Shepherd, who said he was “shocked and grieved to learn that the child known as Hope was his child.”
Paul Shepherd’s statement, according to WXIN and WRTV:
“Mr. Shepherd was completely unaware that a woman with whom he had a brief relationship was pregnant with his or anyone’s child. He first became aware that the child was his after voluntarily providing a DNA sample to police. The shock of this revelation was overwhelming and continues to be so still today.
Mr. Shepherd continues to struggle with the grief which has exacerbated his health conditions and from which he can find no relief. The very thought that a child fathered by him was subjected to such evil is one he cannot escape from.
Please understand the anguish this causes him and his family and the pain any discussion of the matter brings. He has no answers which shed any light on the murder of this child and no relief from the grief he endures from the unknown. Please respect the privacy of [him] and his family, it only brings them more suffering.”
Franklin is about a 25-mile drive south from Indianapolis.
This story was originally published July 14, 2025 at 2:02 PM with the headline "Kids found baby stabbed to death in 1994, IN cops say. Parents now identified."