Mother charged in Commack newborn cold case maintains innocence, lawyer says

Attorney says he’ll challenge statements prosecutors attribute to defendnt; fears public opinion already turned against her

The Virginia mother charged with murder in the 1996 drowning of her newborn son at a Commack movie theater maintains her innocence, her lawyer says. She also plans to challenge statements prosecutors attribute to her.

Michelle Chronick Tyson, 59, will contest those statements as a violation of her constitutional right to remain silent, attorney Christopher Gioe said in a statement to Greater Long Island.

“Prosecutors must demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that she intended to and caused the baby’s death,” Gioe said.

He said Tyson “fears public opinion has already turned against her and that the presumption of innocence is missing.”

“We plan to litigate this matter and hold the prosecution to its burden on every element of the charges,” Gioe said.

Gioe did not specify which statements he plans to challenge. Prosecutors have said Tyson hid the pregnancy, including from her husband, who was not the baby’s father, and that she was at the theater with her son, his friend and other relatives to see “Space Jam.”

In an eight-page bail letter to the judge, Tyson wrote that she did not know the baby’s sex and that after giving birth she cleaned up, placed toilet paper over the baby and walked away, Newsday reported.

A Suffolk County grand jury indicted Tyson on two counts of second-degree murder. She was arrested Oct. 28 in Hampton, Virginia, extradited to Suffolk County and arraigned the next day before Acting Supreme Court Justice Steven Pilewski, who ordered her held without bail.

Prosecutors said workers at the Commack Multiplex, which later closed in 2011, found the newborn boy in a toilet in the women’s restroom about 12:30 a.m. on Nov. 18, 1996. The Suffolk County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled his death a homicide, caused by asphyxia with submersion in water.

The case went unsolved for nearly 30 years. In 2024, the Cold Case Task Force sent a sample of the baby’s blood, kept by the Suffolk County Crime Laboratory, to a private lab.

The lab produced a detailed DNA profile. Investigators then identified Tyson as the likely mother, and a cheek swab taken under a search warrant in August confirmed it, prosecutors said.

Tyson was 29 at the time of the baby’s death. She faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted on the top count and is due back in court Nov. 20.

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_{Top: The Commack Multiplex site at 100 Express Drive North, where prosecutors say Michelle Chronick Tyson gave birth and left the newborn behind to die during a family outing to see “Space Jam” in November 1996. The multiplex closed in 2011 (Photo: SCDA).}