Houston Police have arrested a 14-year-old girl who gave birth to a baby then threw it in a trash can after the child suffocated.
According to police the unidentified child gave birth to her newborn on April16 at a friend’s house. No adults were present, only the 14-year old and her two 11-year old friends. Police state that the kids researched child birth on Youtube, to deliver the baby.
After the baby was delivered is when police state that the crime took place as the kids left the child alive on a mattress “for some time” before the child suffocated after his head was covered with the amniotic sac.
After the children assumed the baby was dead, the teen wrapped her child in a trash bag and threw him in a dumpster.
“We were a little surprised ourselves that these kids gave birth in an apartment,” Senior Officer C.P. Abbey said. “Our question to them was, ‘How did you know how to do this?’ and they said they had looked it up on a computer.”
Police state that although the kids didn’t call 911, they did notify an adult neighbor who told police he put the baby in a large trash bin and in attempt to hide the crime also discarded clothing, bed linens and the mattress.
Police began investigating after one of the 11-year-olds told an elementary school counselor she witnessed the death a week earlier. The counselor, a former Houston police officer, called police.
Although the incident happened in April, police state that the arrest was not able to be made until they not only identified the mother of the child, but also talked to witnesses due to the baby’s body being dumped in the landfill and inability to be recovered.
The 14-year-old mother was charged Monday with a felony charge of injury to a child, police said. She is in the custody of Harris County’s juvenile probation department, spokeswoman Kendall Mayfield said.
The neighbor has not been charged, but the “possibility exists,” Abbey said.
The infant’s father is also a juvenile, but was not present at the birth and has not been charged.
