DNA testing at a lab in The Woodlands helped identify the mother who killed her newborn son at a Texas Air Force base in 1988.

Tammy Sue Kerns, 58, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder on Wednesday, Sept. 9, in federal court. She admitted to killing her full-term infant at the Air Force Regional Hospital at Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls. She faces five to 20 years in federal prison under the plea agreement, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Texas.

The case went unsolved for 27 years before investigators reopened it.

In August 1988, a newborn baby boy was found in a laundry bin at Ponds Laundry in Wichita Falls, wrapped in linens from the base hospital. An autopsy determined the infant died from hypovolemia and anemia. All known pregnant patients and newborns on the base were accounted for at the time, and investigators could not identify the mother.

The Air Force Office of Special Investigations, known as AFOSI, reopened the case in 2015. In May 2022, investigators sent tissue samples to Othram's laboratory in The Woodlands. The company, founded by CEO David Mittelman, used advanced DNA sequencing and forensic genetic genealogy to identify biological relatives.

That work produced a breakthrough in 2023, identifying a man referred to in court documents as M.R. as the potential biological father. He was confirmed as the father through DNA comparison after an interview in December 2024, according to AFOSI.

AFOSI's Cold Case Unit then analyzed personnel rosters from Andrews Air Force Base and Sheppard covering 1987–1988. Only one female service member was stationed at Andrews during the likely conception period and later reassigned to Sheppard at the time of birth: Kerns.

Kerns served as an Air Force radiology technician from 1986 to 1996, the Times Record News reported. She was stationed at Andrews in Maryland before transferring to Sheppard in early 1988.

AFOSI agents interviewed Kerns on May 20, 2025, at the Cobb County Police Department in Marietta, Georgia, near where she had been living since leaving the Air Force.

In plea papers, Kerns admitted she went into labor during a night shift at the hospital and locked herself in the X-ray room. She gave birth, then placed her hand over the newborn's mouth until he stopped crying and breathing. She severed the umbilical cord, wrapped the infant in hospital linens, placed him in a laundry bin, cleaned the room and returned to her shift.

Othram confirmed Kerns was the baby's mother on Aug. 5, 2025, court records show. She was charged Sept. 1 and pleaded guilty eight days later. She was released with conditions the same day.

"No child should be forgotten, no matter how much time has passed," Mittelman said in the federal announcement of the plea. "We are honored to have supported AFOSI with the DNA testing that helped uncover the truth in this case."

Kerns had fully separated from the Air Force and was not retired, which led the U.S. Attorney's Office to prosecute in federal court. Assistant U.S. Attorney Allyson Monte is handling the prosecution.

Othram said this is the company's 32nd publicly announced Texas case in which its technology helped identify an individual. KHOU reported on the case as part of the lab's growing record of cold-case identifications.

Kerns's sentencing hearing is scheduled for Jan. 8, 2027, before Chief U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor.