An abandoned infant's baby tooth may be the key to finding her parents.
Baby Chloe, discovered in a plastic Walmart bag just an hour after her birth with her umbilical cord still attached, has a rare early tooth that may help authorities flesh out the newborn's family history.
The natal tooth, seen in only one of every 2,000 infants, is the latest development in the hunt for Chloe's parents since a woman walking her dog discovered the baby outside an apartment complex in Cypress, Tex., on Feb. 19, ABC News reported.
Houston police have also turned to world-famous forensic sketch artist Lois Gibson to draw up composite sketches of what Chloe's mom and dad would probably look like.
Gibson, named "Most Successful Forensic Artist" by Guinness World Records, made the renderings by doing an age progression on Chloe's appearance.
The pastel drawings show a man and woman in their early 20s with several of Chloe's distinguishing features, like her gray eyes, her dark brown hair and her signature smile.
"The people would recognize that smile," Gibson told ABC's "Good Morning America." "It's a ready smile, and then all I had to do was put teeth."
This is reportedly the first time law enforcement officials have tried such a technique. But some forensic art experts have raised their eyebrows at the drawings' precision.
"I doubt [the sketches] are going to be accurate at all … not even in the ballpark of likeness," Steve Loftin, head of the forensic imaging unit at the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, told ABC News.
"Trying to add years to a baby's face without any reference at all — we could not do that and be sure of any accuracy," he said.
Gibson, who has never done an age progression on a child as young as Chloe, acknowledged that random factors, like weight gain, acne and dyed hair, could affect the renderings' exactness.
"It might just look half like one and half like the other," Gibson told the Houston Chronicle. "I think I have a 50 per cent chance of the sketches looking more like one than the other."
Authorities hope either Chloe's parents or other relatives come forward to claim the child. Determining the parents' identities has been especially difficult for authorities because it appears the mother never visited doctors for prenatal care.
Chloe's parents will face charges if found.
The tiny bundle of joy, named by her rescuers at Texas Children's Hospital, remains in the care of Child Protective Services. But there is no doubt she will soon "be placed in a loving home," Harris County Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Christina Garza told ABC News.
"There is no shortage of people who want her."
