Flashback: Children tell police they found ‘little people’ disposed of inside dumpster

A group of young children playing near a trash dumpster in 1984 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, discovered what they later told police were “little people.” These were later identified by the Milwaukee Medical Examiner’s Office as the bodies of aborted babies.

“Forty years ago, Milwaukeeans were shaken by the news: Young children playing in a NW area of the city discovered in a garbage dumpster the mangled bodies of aborted babies,” Dan Zeidler, then executive director of Wisconsin Citizens Concerned for Life (WCCL), told Live Action News.

Ziedler was granted permission to bury the aborted babies. He said, “With Milwaukee County’s permission, the cooperation of Milwaukee Archdiocesan Cemetery officials, and the help of concerned citizens, arrangements were made to bury these ‘little people’ in a dignified and prayerful manner in the Children’s Section of Milwaukee’s Holy Cross Cemetery.”

Driver improperly disposed of remains after she “became ill”

Monica Miller, founder of Citizens for a Pro-life Society wrote about the case in her book “Abandoned: The Untold Story of the Abortion Wars.”

The ‘little people” were “from the now closed Bread and Roses Clinic that used to be at Third (Street) and Wisconsin (Avenue),” Miller told the Catholic Herald in 2013. “A driver for Bay Shore Clinical Laboratories had picked up the fetal remains [at the abortion facility] and, while driving, became ill from the odor from the container she had just loaded into the van. As a result, the driver, who was later fired, dumped the aborted fetuses into a trash dumpster.”

News reports indicated that police were called to the location for “children throwing rocks.”

According to a Channel 12 Action News in Milwaukee report at that time, “The children said they didn’t have any rocks; they were throwing ‘little people.'”

One of the children who found the aborted babies, a seven-year-old girl, spoke to local media, telling them, “We found some legs, and the arms and the head.”

“The fetuses were all determined to be less than 20 weeks old, considered specimens,” reported TV6 News in Milwaukee.

While there were no laws governing fetal disposal in Wisconsin at that time, that changed a year later, when the state passed a fetal disposal ordinance.

Medical examination

Zeidler sent Live Action News a copy of the May 14, 1984, Milwaukee County Medical Examiner report which indicated that the initial call to police was to report “kids throwing stones from bridge.”

“Police were asked what they were throwing to which they answered, ‘little people,'” the report added, proving the accuracy of media reports. A day later (5/15/1984) “more fetuses had been discovered in the vicinity,” the report stated.

All containers holding the remains were similar and also contained women’s names on the lids.

Police were notified by “Bay Shore Laboratory” that the remains came from the “Bread and Roses Medical Clinic,” which committed abortions, according to the document.

Although Bay Shore reported to law enforcement that it picked up 26 containers, the Medical Examiner’s report claimed that “Twenty-three [23] containers with lids were eventually transported to the County morgue.”

The Medical Examiner’s report indicated that among the more than two dozen containers of “little people,” at least 11 aborted children were examined. They were determined to be between the gestational ages of six to eight weeks.

The burial

On May 21, 1984, the ME’s report states that “Mr. Dan Zeidler made a formal request for authorization to bury the fetuses” and was granted permission. “We told them we were planning to do a very respectful burial,” Zeidler said.

The “little people” were eventually turned over to a funeral director in the area.

“They put the babies into these little caskets and delivered them to the gravesite,” Zeidler told Live Action News.

The remains of the “little people” were buried in the children’s section of Holy Cross Cemetery, which is maintained by the Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee. They can be identified with a grave marker that says, ‘Holy Innocents. Little People,’” according to the Catholic Herald.

Over 1,200 aborted babies are buried there, and they include babies found by Monica Miller who has published their images at her website, ImagesofAbortion.com.

1984 Little People TV news coverage

The memorial

A brochure for the cemetery described the final resting place for these precious “Little People”:

The main stone, approximately six feet high, has an engraved image of Christ holding a young child and surrounded by other children. The inscription below states, “‘Let the children come to me. Do not hinder them. The Kingdom of God belongs to such as these.’ (Mt 19:14)”.

Alongside the main stone is a smaller stone with the following inscription, “This monument stands as a testimony to the Sanctity of Human Life. Among these graves of children are included preborn babies, victims of abortion. ‘The reason why the world does not know us, is that it did not know Him. We are God’s children now.’ (1 Jn 3:1)”

The gravesite of the “Little People” has its own marker… as does the grave of the 1,200 babies which reads, “1200 unborn children killed by ‘legalized’ abortion, February 9, 1988 to September 7, 1988 – Holy Innocents of God”. The stone marking the grave of the 1,200 children also has two other quotations, “A cry was heard in Rama, Rachel weeping for her children” (Mt 2:24), and “He will wipe every tear from their eyes” Rev. 21:4 (See photo middle of back page.)

“This mass gravesite has become a place of prayer for pro-life people, and also a place where post-abortion women come to mourn, to ask forgiveness, and to pray for healing,” it also reads.

The cemetery brochure also states, “And let us resolve to end this ‘legalized’ barbarism that is not only killing over a million children a year and gravely wounding their mothers and fathers, it is suffocating our society. May the breath and life of Christ renew us and convert our hearts to His plan for Life and Love!”

Ziedler wrote in an e-mail, “This month as we remember the 40th anniversary of the burial of the ‘Little People’, we ask you to remember these victims of abortion, and all victims of abortion, including the women who have been pressured and coerced into thinking killing their child was ‘the best choice under the circumstances’, like the women who come to the cemetery to mourn their ‘choice.”

As the brochure stated, “Let us not forget them!”

The DOJ put a pro-life grandmother in jail for protesting the killing of preborn children. Please take 30-seconds to TELL CONGRESS: STOP THE DOJ FROM TARGETING PRO-LIFE AMERICANS.