Almost two months after a newborn was found in a trash bin at an apartment complex, a Florida judge has allowed the child’s father to take her home.
The Palm Beach Post reports 34-year-old Carlos Jimenez Martins will name the little girl Sarah Jimenez Carvalho.
The father of a newborn baby girl found alive in a dumpster in suburban Boca Raton in May has been given custody of her. https://t.co/5uRbjx2gDB
— CBS4 Miami (@CBSMiami) July 4, 2019
Her 34-year-old mother Rafaelle Alessandra Carvalho Sousa remains in jail, charged with child abuse and attempted murder.
Martins and Sousa share a 3-year-old son as well. He told detectives he didn’t know his longtime girlfriend was pregnant until just before she was arrested in May.
Father Awarded Custody Of Baby Found In Florida Trash Bin https://t.co/NSHtQjTIML pic.twitter.com/Ywcsq9eoW8
— 5NEWS (@5NEWS) July 4, 2019
The Department of Children and Families took custody of the little boy after Sousa’s arrest. The judge gave Martins custody of the boy on June 11, but ordered a DNA test to make sure he is the father of the infant.
Newborn Baby Found Atop Garbage Can in Alley
In a similar story two months ago, a 16-year-old girl has been identified as the mother of a newborn baby who was found abandoned on top of a trash can in Chicago.
The girl was being questioned by the Chicago Police Department as was the baby’s father, spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement on May 9.
A woman and her daughter noticed the baby boy, who had been born just hours prior, on top of a trash can in the Humboldt Park neighborhood and rushed him to a firehouse where paramedics jumped into action.
UPDATE: Chicago police have confirmed 16-year-old girl is the mother of a baby found abandoned in an alley https://t.co/FjPBvaoroz pic.twitter.com/BQHWSEzi5d
— WGN TV News (@WGNNews) May 9, 2019
Relatives of Marlen Ochoa, a missing pregnant woman who was due to give birth, thought that she might be the baby’s mother. They asked police to conduct a DNA test on the baby.
“The baby that was found yesterday, there’s a possibility it’s my daughter’s,” Ochoa’s mother told CBS Chicago. “I pray to God it is.”
Rev. Walter Coleman, the family’s pastor, said that the family hopes that the DNA test will provide answers. They think Ochoa was kidnapped.
“We praise God that, no matter whose baby it is, that this baby turned out through the efforts of the fire department to be alive. That’s a blessing from the Lord,” Coleman said.
“We hope that it is the baby, but we’re also worried that my wife won’t appear,” added Ochoa’s husband Giovanni Lopez. “We’re desperate, we’re sad; in hopes that the baby they found is my wife’s.”
On the abandoned baby found in the alley: “Death wanted him. But this day, God said ‘no.'” My column on the life that was saved. @chicagotribune https://t.co/Z6ubezZo6z
— John Kass (@John_Kass) May 9, 2019
The baby still had his umbilical cord attached when he was found, Chicago Fire Dept. Field Chief Patrick Fitzmaurice said at a news conference, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
“This poor kid was minutes away from having no chance at all,” Fitzmaurice said. “The baby was cold as concrete. I wasn’t ready to lose this one, and neither were the” emergency personnel.
Larry Langford, a spokesman for the Chicago Fire Department, said that the baby only had a pulse at the hospital because of the machines keeping him alive.
“All the people who were around in the ER were saying. ‘Come on kid, come on kid, come on little boy.’ They were all pulling for him,” Langford said, reported the Chicago Tribune. “They were all just rooting for this little kid.”
NTD News reporter Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.
