A woman who abandoned her newborn in a bush shortly after giving birth was arrested in Seattle on Tuesday following a lengthy investigation. The case began when a man reported finding the dead infant on the “Find It Fix It App,” according to newly released court documents.
The investigation commenced on February 22, 2023, when the City of Seattle Animal Control alerted the Seattle Police Department about a submission on the app. The report was titled “Dead baby abandoned in bushes,” accompanied by a photo, and categorized under “Dead Animal”, by Komo News.
Police contacted the man who made the report and discovered the baby near Shilshole Avenue NW and NW Vernon Place. The man explained that he noticed the dead newborn while relieving himself in the bushes after leaving the Sunday Market. His wife and child were waiting in the car nearby. He did not call 911 because he did not perceive it as an emergency.
Detectives recorded the man’s reasoning for not calling 911, where he explained, “My experience with this kind of thing, with 911, is that I would have had to stay there, you know until a responding officer came. I didn’t know anything or have any information to provide other than this is where I found it. And also, it wasn’t an emergency, you know there was clearly nothing done to help the child at that point. I didn’t have any kind of information on how that happened. With my wife and kid there, I wasn’t going to leave my kid in the car for, you know, an hour or so while police responded, and then I got interviewed, and all the, you know, all that sort of process. I’ve used the Find It Fix It app to report a lot of situations before that 911 wasn’t, you know, wasn’t there, I just didn’t want to be stuck there for hours, you know it was already pretty traumatic and I just wanted to report it so something could be put in motion, but also just get out of there.”
The man apologized for his reporting method, and officers explained that even though the child was deceased, it was still an emergency call since it involved a human being. The report was not received by police until three days after the submission due to the President’s Day holiday, leaving the duration the child had been there unknown.
Seattle Police processed the scene and collected evidence, including baby wipes found near the infant. The King County Medical Examiner reported the baby had fractures to its frontal orbital plate and signs of maternal drug abuse, but the cause of death remained undetermined.
Detectives linked the infant to a man through a DNA database, matching his DNA collected from a beer bottle in a 2004 investigation. The man, who lived in an apartment complex in the University District, seemed surprised by the connection but provided the name of a woman he had been with in recent years.
The woman, identified by a group of unhoused people in north Seattle as being pregnant around January 2023, was described as extremely mentally ill. The man promised to notify detectives if he saw her again, and in June 2024, he contacted police, saying he was with her. However, when police tried to speak with her, she left his apartment.
On July 23, officers arrested the suspected mother at the man’s apartment complex. When questioned about the incident on February 22, 2023, she stated, “Oh yeah, that’s when I had a baby. I didn’t even know I was pregnant at the time.” She recounted giving birth in bushes near railroad tracks and abandoning the child hours later.
During the interview, the woman conversed with herself, claiming to speak to “Echo and Bird,” and repeatedly questioned if the baby was “real.”
The 41-year-old woman now faces charges of second-degree manslaughter, reckless endangerment, and unlawful disposal of human remains. Her bail is set at $150,000.