Heartbreaking Mystery In California

DNA Tests Say 3 Babies Abandoned Since 2005 Almost Certainly Have Same Mom

(AP)  The first newborn was discovered swaddled in a blanket on an outdoor bench, an umbilical cord still hanging from his tiny body. Then, at neat 11-month intervals, two more abandoned babies were found in parked pickup trucks in the same neighborhood.

This week, DNA tests established all three babies were almost certainly born to the same mother.

Now, in a heartbreaking mystery that has transfixed Orosi, California - a farm community of about 7,300 people - investigators are trying to find the mother and figure out what drove her to such desperate lengths.

"How can the relatives not see this girl pregnant, and then see that she's not pregnant anymore and not ask where's the baby? Somebody must know something," said Hortencia Espino, 81.

All three newborns were found within a two-block radius. The first two - a boy and a girl - survived and are now wards of the state.

The third baby was found dead of exposure on the cold night of Dec. 3. She was enveloped in a sweatshirt in the bed of a pickup parked near the high school, some 60 miles southeast of Fresno. The coroner concluded she was alive for less than a day.

On Wednesday, a Catholic church held a baptism and funeral Mass in Spanish and English for the baby girl, who was dubbed "Angelita DeOrosi," or Orosi's little angel.

Later, under the shade of a corrugated plastic awning, sheriff's officials and grandmothers delicately sifted handfuls of dirt onto her white coffin before it was lowered into the earth.

Marely Pena, who found the infant in her father's truck, cried behind dark glasses.

"I ask myself every day 'What if she had been alive?' We could have saved her," said Pena, 25. "I just hope the mother comes forward to please just make us feel at ease."

Orosi, a town encircled by fig and lemon orchards, has long been the kind of place where everyone seemed to know each other. But that is changing, with new housing developments going up and a burgeoning gang problem that has led to a rise in violent crime.

As upset residents built makeshift shrines in honor of Angelita, authorities interviewed local women they thought might be involved. But DNA testing eliminated them as the babies' mother.

After exhausting all leads, officials are asking the community for help finding the parents and are offering a $5,000 reward. Police said the mother could face criminal charges. But they also said they want to make sure she doesn't do it again and isn't in some kind of distress.

Investigators would not speculate as to the reasons for the abandonment, such as whether the mother might have been a prostitute or a rape victim.

"Whether the mother is in a physical state of danger or a mental state where she feels she can't ask for help, our heart goes out to her," Karen Franzen, manager of Dopkins Funeral Chapel in Dinuba, which donated a casket and cemetery plot for Angelita.

The first deserted newborn was found on Feb. 10, 2005, a barely breathing boy with a body temperature of just 85 degrees. On January 8, 2006, a resident discovered a full-term baby girl inside a pickup two blocks away, clothed in an undershirt and pants.

On Monday, sheriff's officials announced the DNA results. The first two babies probably had the same father, but Angelita was fathered by a different man.

California and 46 other states allow parents to legally abandon a child at a hospital or other designated safe zones within 72 hours of birth, no questions asked.

Since California's law went into effect in 2001, parents have safely surrendered 182 babies at fire stations, emergency rooms and other safe havens, according to state officials.

"This little community is a family. We know pretty much everyone else's business and they know ours," said Eugene Etheridge, principal of Orosi High School. "It's concerning that this could happen again when the most precious thing we have is our children."

[madisongirl-2009]

I am a woman who is pro-life, but I have a question for those people who are pro-abortion:

WHAT IF THE BABY THAT IS BEING KILLED IS ALSO FEMALE?? WHAT ABOUT HER RIGHTS TO HER BODY, hmmmmm??

I was adopted, and I am very thankful that my birth mother was pro-life.


PS

So to all liberals, this May 13th (mother's day), please thank YOUR mother for being pro-life, or else you wouldn't be reading this post.

[cjhr43]

me4prezz - GOD BLESS ALL OF YOU ... overcoming obstacles is what life is all about. The world is a better place because of people like you.

[me4prezz]

Also, my sister, who is now 9, is adopted. Her birth mother never told anyone she was pregnant and delivered her in a toilet to drown. Her grandfather, luckily, found her and rushed her to the hospital. In the 1st 3 years of her life, she was sexually, physically and emotionally abused. She showed up on our doorstep with her mother and my half-uncle (a complete useless waste of human) because they had no place to live after getting kicked out of where they lived. My parents took her in and kicked out her parents when they noticed how terribly off this girl was. She had nothing. Absolutely nothing. Her mother said that she was just a means to get money from the government and that was the only reason they kept her. My parents took her in and now she is a healthy, happy little 9 year old with a great home, but a lot of problems from the first 3 years of her life. She has a long ways to go, but should she have never exited because her mother didn't want her? No. This little girl has made us a family again when things were going terribly wrong and she is here for a reason. I love her to death and I would defend her to the death and will if that scumbug of a man who married her mother (half-uncle) ever comes near her again.

[me4prezz]

I have a friend who has tried desperately to get pregnant. She has tried everything she can, including clinical trial studies and everything has failed. She would give ANYTHING to have a child and then there are people who abandon their babies. I just don't get it. My 3rd child (and last) was unexpected and I cried for a week when I found out I was pregnant again (My other children are 3 and 2 and now I have a 9 month old). But, as time went on, I adapted and got excited, especially when I found out she would be my only daughter. I can't ever imagine not having her now. If someone doesn't want a baby, why not drop it off at a hospital, firestation, ambulance station, or put it up for adoption? There are many ways to give up an unwanted baby without abandoning it to die.

I only agree with abortion if it is a life or death situation for the mother and/or child, such as preeclampsia, placenta abrution, etc. Otherwise, there are resources out there and millions of would-be parents who would love to adopt a child. This is just wrong.

Besides, this isn't even really about abortion since this mother carried to term and delivered these children and then dumped the bodies. That is murder. They were born and in any definition by any standards were alive and healthy and were left to die.

[cgesualdo]

Just being adopted doesn't make your birth mother necessarily pro-life. It just means she didn't have an abortion. And just because this mother was pregnant does not mean that anyone could see that for themselves. There are plenty of women who go all nine months and no one can tell. So everyone can just throw away their assumptions about this one. I can't pretend to understand why anyone would abandon a child in the cold when there are so many ways to make sure the child will go to a good home. However, the fact that this person seems to be getting pregnant again almost immediately after having a child speaks volumes about her situation. It sounds like she's trapped.

[cmp271]

Who knows who it could be, DNA should tell what race she is, lets find out....

If anything this shows that abortion should be legal, and available.

Abortion should not be a political football. It is a private matter between a woman and her doctor, and even the father. Everyone else needs to butt out of this decision. Any day I find myself in that predicament and don't want to have the baby there had better be abortion available.

[cjhr43]

God bless you, Michelle... its sad and I feel your pain, along with the pain of the children in foster care. While the growing up years may be hard, and I have had many friends and acquaintances that had similar issues, they have grown to be loving and empathetic individuals. Until you have experienced a situation its hard to relate. Things are not always as simple to solve as they seem. Its easy to say what you would do or how you would handle any situation until it has happened to you... then quite often the reasoning changes. Good luck and I hope things turned around for you.

[michellem99-2009]

I know this is about the children dumped. Noboby knows why and or the Mum. Yet we all have our say here. I feel for the children in foster home care. The men fathered these kids maybe they should look for them too. I feel that people who need to be fixed so they can't bring children to the world,for free as that is cheaper in the long run than placing the children in foster care. It is sad for the children who grow up and foster care is all they know. I have been there.

[madisongirl-2009]

I am a woman who is pro-life, but I have a question for those who are pro-abortion:

WHAT IF THE BABY THAT IS BEING KILLED IS ALSO FEMALE?? WHAT ABOUT HER RIGHTS TO HER BODY, hmmmmm??

I was adopted, and I am very thankful that my birth mother was pro-life.


PS

So to all liberals, this May 13th (mother's day), please thank YOUR mother for being pro-life, or else you wouldn't be reading this post.

[madisongirl-2009]

I am a woman who is pro-life, but I have a question for those who pro-abortion:

WHAT IF THE BABY THAT IS BEING KILLED IS ALSO FEMALE?? WHAT ABOUT HER RIGHTS TO HER BODY, hmmmmm??

I was adopted, and I am very thankful that my birth mother was pro-life.


PS

So to all liberals, this May 13th (mother's day), please thank YOUR mother for being pro-life, or else you wouldn't be reading this post.

[a-ji]

I'm against abortion. If a woman is not ready to have a child, then use contraceptives. But if she wanted to have one, then by all means have a baby. If it so happen she got pregnant against her will, then better gave birth and let someone adopt the child rather than commit abortion or abandon a child. Life is all about choice, and it should be the right one.

[a-ji]

I'm against abortion. If a woman is not ready to have a child, then use contraceptives. But if she wanted to have one, then by all means have a baby. If it so happen she got pregnant against her will, then better gave birth and let someone adopt the child rather than commit abortion. Life is all about choice, and it should be the right one.

[rohink-2009]

gmond,
So it is either someone who is in this country illegally or a religiously backwards person?

[rohink-2009]

I looked through all my book book prenatal books and no where did I see it mentioned that the fetus is not a human being until it is born. I guess I'll have to do some more research on line.

[smb221]

whoops! Wrote the word book way too many times. Sorry!

[gmond]

This is not a pro-life or pro-choice story, this is about one person who continues to get pregnant and give birth and then leave her babies to die. If she was on welfare there wouldn't be any problem, she could just claim ignorance of the father and get another check, so she's probably illegal and/or the deluded offspring of a religiously backwards family.

[smb221]

Any book book prenatal book or research online will tell you. Goodbye.

[rohink-2009]

The key word there is "developing human being." It is not a human being until the fetus is born. LOOK IT UP!
Posted by smb221

Where do we LOOK IT UP?

[smb221]

Mainemade wrote, "It's just sad that one baby is dead," right after a prelude explaining that it's a woman's choice to murder a developing human being. How utterly paradoxical. Thanks to our country's adoption networks, it is now completely unnecessary that any child should die for being unwanted or unplanned. My heart goes out to all mothers.
Posted by kiddo88 at 04:03 PM : Mar 29, 2007


The key word there is "developing human being." It is not a human being until the fetus is born. LOOK IT UP!

[kiddo88]

Mainemade wrote, "It's just sad that one baby is dead," right after a prelude explaining that it's a woman's choice to murder a developing human being. How utterly paradoxical. Thanks to our country's adoption networks, it is now completely unnecessary that any child should die for being unwanted or unplanned. My heart goes out to all mothers.