WATCH ABOVE: Stephanie Jones said she couldn’t believe what was happening when neighbours asked her if she knew who an unattended baby belonged to. Stephanie Ramirez reports.
TORONTO – A Baltimore mother is facing charges after her dehydrated six-week-old daughter was found sitting in a carrier on a road in the middle of the night. However, police still aren’t sure exactly how she got there.
Local pastor Bishop Raymond Showell and his wife were out driving just before midnight Saturday near the 900 block of Druid Avenue in Pasadena, Maryland, around the corner from a local park.
“If a car had came up the road, it sure would’ve ran over it,” added neighbour Alice Burton. She was the one to make the original call to 911.
Scuffs were visible on the carrier while a diaper bag and other debris littered the road — something police say was indicative of the carrier falling out of a moving vehicle.
A small group of nearby residents waited for authorities by gathering around the infant to block any oncoming traffic.
“The baby just cried so hard,” Burton added. “It’s a shame people do something like that.”
“The infant was transported by EMS to a local hospital, where she is being treated for dehydration and will be released to the Department of Child Protective Services,” police said in a Facebook post early Sunday.
Later in the day, a woman who claimed to be the mother called police after she was alerted to multiple social media posts originating from the Anne Arundel County Police Department’s Facebook and Twitter accounts.
https://twitter.com/AACOPD/status/617657955085893632/photo/1
“The woman advised that the infant’s father was supposed to have the child. She further advised that the father did not know where the child was,” police said in a statement. “The caller, later identified as Sandra McClary, advised she did not have the child either and did not know of the whereabouts.”
But the investigation took a twist when detectives obtained a partial tag of a possible suspect’s car.
“While questioning McClary, detectives were able to determine that she was in the 900 block of Druid Hill Avenue and removed the child from the vehicle and left her on the side of the road,” police later confirmed.
McClary, 26, was charged with child abandonment and reckless endangerment after police verified she was, indeed, the child’s mother.
“You can’t leave a two-to-three month old on the side of a road unattended period. End of story,” Lt. T.J. Smith said.
The child remains in the care of Social Services while police continue to investigate.
Baby formula was still visible on the road Sunday afternoon.
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