FRENCHVILLE, Maine — Armand and Lorraine Pelletier were stunned one December morning in 1985 when their Siberian Husky, Paca, dropped the frozen body of a newborn girl on the doorstep of their home in Frenchville, Maine.

For more than 36 years, Pelletier, his wife and the entire community were haunted by the death of “Baby Jane Doe,” who authorities discovered had been born in a nearby gravel pit and left to die, cold and alone. Who was the girl’s mother? Why was the baby abandoned?

Maine State Police officials announced Tuesday that they had answered at least one of those questions with the arrest of Lee Ann Daigle, 58, of Lowell, Massachusetts. According to cold case detectives, Daigle has been identified through DNA and genetic genealogy as the infant’s mother.

Daigle, whose name at the time was Lee Ann Guerette, would have been 21 years old when she gave birth. She was arrested without incident outside her home and quickly waived extradition to be brought back to Maine to face a murder charge.

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“Never, ever, ever did I dream even with DNA that they would find the mother,” Lorraine Pelletier told the Bangor Daily News. “It was so long ago.”

It was the morning of Dec. 7, 1985, when Paca took home the newborn’s body, to which the umbilical cord was still attached. According to police officials, the dog had carried and dragged the girl less than 700 feet to the Pelletiers’ home.

Armand Pelletier, who found the body outside his home around 10 a.m. that day, told police the girl had not been there two…