Ex-AFL player Jimmy Anderson was sent body of dead baby in post by mystery sender in Melbourne in 1965

It is a grisly crime that has baffled law enforcement and intrigued Australia for almost 60 years: the corpse of newborn baby boy sent to a post office in Darwin. 

But now the cold case has been blown wide open with the revelation that the package was intended for a former champion AFL player.

Amelia Anderson, whose father Jimmy Anderson was named in the Australian Football League’s Northern Territory Team of the Century, has offered to supply DNA samples after True Crime Australia’s The Missing podcast re-reported the dead baby was addressed to a ‘J Anderson’ last month. 

‘We knew it was our dad,’ said Ms Anderson, who came forward after reading about the case featured in the podcast. 

The ‘J Anderson’ sent a dead baby in the post in 1965 has been revealed as AFL player and ‘ladies man’ Jimmy Anderson (pictured)

The unnamed child was found with a stocking wrapped tightly around his neck, ruling out the possibility that he was stillborn (pictured)

During his sporting career, Jimmy Anderson played for the Darwin Buffaloes and also played two seasons for WAFL Club West Perth. He died in April 2017.

The case unfolded on May 3 in 1965, when postal worker John Polishuk noticed a foul smell coming from a package that had been sent from ‘JF Barnes’ in Mentone, Victoria.

He opened the uncollected package, sent to ‘J Anderson’, and was horrified to find a dead baby boy that still had part of his umbilical cord attached.

The unnamed child was found with a stocking wrapped tightly around his neck, ruling out the possibility that he was stillborn. 

Ms Anderson is convinced the baby was her brother.

‘You get that feeling in your belly. I just knew. I just know. I’ve got a feeling that it’s my big brother,’ she said.

Amelia Anderson (pictured with her father in his later years, left) claims her dad was a ‘ladies man’ who was ‘always unfaithful’ to their mother

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Ms Anderson, who is the youngest of Jimmy and her mother’s six children, said her father was a ‘ladies man’.

‘My mother did put up a lot from Dad,’ Ms Anderson said.

‘She forgave him because she ended up having more children. Even throughout the marriage we started picking up on dad’s infidelity. We know we have brothers and sisters out there that we haven’t met yet.

‘This sounds like our father. This was something he was doing behind our mother’s back’.

Ms Anderson said she was initially shocked to learn the man sent the dead baby could be her father, but now she wants closure for herself and the dead baby.

‘Dad was always unfaithful to our mother, unfortunately, this is something that’s not a surprise. But the way the baby was sent to Darwin, obviously, that’s a big surprise and shocking,’ she said.

‘I’m 53 years old and to hear a cold case that… and if that’s got a connection to do with our father, well I want closure for that Detective who’s been on the case for so long.

‘And also for that little baby, that little baby needs closure,’ Ms Anderson said.

‘Our main goal is, we have to put this little baby to rest with a loving environment, and people around him even though we never knew this little baby.

‘I think it’s just the right thing as humans to do’.

Former Detective Denver Marchant – the officer sent to the post office to investigate revealed in the podcast that he also believed the J Anderson was a well known sportsman in the Northern Territory.

In 2014, Mr Marchant told Daily Mail Australia he had never got over the unsolved case.

‘I’ve witnessed hundreds of post mortems over the years,’ he said.

‘But for some reason that one stuck with me because it was so bizarre.

‘I guess it shocked us and something like that I think is unparalleled in Australia.’