Despite his decades of interest, Gill never got to examine the lost Pedro Mountain mummy. Now he had Chiquita. Gill wasn’t going to let her get away. He asked the family for permission to examine her. They agreed but set tight terms.

“They would come in each day and take it. I don't think we ever had it on an overnight,” he said. “By each evening (I mean) we would meet each evening and I would get it back to them."

In the end, they would allow him access to Chiquita only three times. Gill made the days count. He examined the mummy and arranged for tests at Children’s Hospital in Denver.

The exams told a tale of a tragedy: a baby born with anencephaly. Gill had seen much the same telltale signs in the Pedro Mountain mummy. The two infants were born without the capacity to survive.

Yet they were both buried in such a way that they were preserved from the elements, left undisturbed to mummify naturally in Wyoming’s arid climate. Both were left forever with their legs tucked under them, their arms wrapped around themselves. Upright.

“Nowhere else in Wyoming do we have burial sitting up like that. Never sitting up with legs crossed and arms folded across their chest,” Gill said. “There's a clear connection between the two of them, besides being in the same region."