Newborn found in car seat under blankets behind Mississippi dumpster, cops say
Abandoned in the dark, a newborn baby girl was found behind a line of dumpsters, Mississippi officials said.
The baby, found at about 7 p.m. Jan. 24, was tucked behind the dumpsters of the Grove at Cayce Mobile Home park, just south of the Tennessee border, the Marshall County Sheriff’s Office said in a Jan. 25 Facebook post.
“The baby was in a car seat bundled up in several blankets, with one blanket over the top of the seat,” the sheriff’s office said in the post. “Some of the blankets were blue and pink in color.”
The sheriff’s office said three men went to throw away trash when they heard what they believed was a baby crying, WREG reported.
Under the blankets, she was alive, the sheriff’s office said, and was later taken to the hospital in “good condition.”
Estimated to be about 2 to 3 weeks old, the sheriff’s office told WREG that investigators were back at the mobile home park Jan. 25 to review security cameras, and the car seat would be checked for fingerprints and DNA.
The sheriff’s office asked anyone with information on the child to come forward, and on Jan. 26, deputies announced two “persons of interest” had been taken into custody, according to a Facebook post.
“The infant remains in good condition and continues to recover at the Le Bonheur Medical Center,” in Memphis, Tennessee, the sheriff’s office said.
Mississippi, and neighboring Tennessee, have safe haven laws that allow parents to surrender a child to any emergency medical services provider if they are under 45 days old without fear of legal action.
This includes surrendering a child at locations such as hospitals, fire stations or police departments, or using a “baby safety device” such as a baby box, the law says.
Cayce is about 40 miles southeast of Memphis.
