Mom, boyfriend charged after newborn found dead inside dumpster at Fort Worth motel, police say

A 23-year-old woman and her 26-year-old boyfriend have been charged in the death of her newborn baby who was found in a dumpster at a Fort Worth motel over the weekend, an arrest affidavit revealed Monday.

Police said Avia Cantrell has been charged with capital murder of a person under 10 years old, and Camron Baker has been charged with abuse of a corpse.

How the baby was found

The Fort Worth Police Department said at about 8:55 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 18, officers responded to the Drummers Inn in the 7300 block of Camp Bowie Boulevard after an infant was found and was possibly dead.

When they arrived, a homeless woman admitted that she was dumpster diving when she found a bag, opened it at the business next door and found the child, the arrest affidavit said.  

The woman told her friend, who also checked the bag to make sure, and they alerted someone at the Drummers Inn and borrowed a phone to call 911.

Police said the baby was transported to the hospital, where they were pronounced dead.

Evidence leads to the mother, her boyfriend

FWPD told CBS News Texas that investigators returned to the motel on Monday to review surveillance video.

The affidavit reveals that at about that same time, Cantrell's sister-in-law called police for a welfare check at the motel because Cantrell was pregnant and due soon. Her sister-in-law said that Cantrell had a history of having a baby that nobody knew about.

An officer then made contact with Cantrell, who was living at the motel, and said that she "seemed nervous when speaking with him." The officer also said that Cantrell denied being pregnant.

However, as surveillance footage was being reviewed, video from June 2026 showed Cantrell with a larger stomach, police said. There was also footage of a woman walking to the dumpster and carrying a box of items, including a car seat, where the baby was found on Oct. 18.

Police said that the motel manager identified Cantrell as the woman in the video and confirmed that she lived at the motel.

Officers then responded to the room where Cantrell was staying with her three children, who are now with a relative.

As she was being interviewed, Cantrell admitted that she had been living in the motel with her boyfriend and children for the last two years, according to the affidavit. Cantrell told police that she had four children and two miscarriages, including two of those children who were both at home and not in the hospital.

Cantrell kept denying being pregnant until she finally confessed to what happened, police said.

While crying, Cantrell told police that the baby was born at 7 a.m. on Oct. 14, in the bathtub of her motel room. When describing the birth, Cantrell admitted that the tub was filled with water and after the child came out and was moving, she left the baby "face down in the water approximately 30 minutes before moving the child," the affidavit said.

Cantrell confessed that the baby's feet were white, and she assumed the baby was no longer alive, so she covered the child up and placed the child inside a bag, which matched the bag the baby was later discovered in, according to the affidavit.

Cantrell said that's when she called her boyfriend, Baker, and told him what happened.

Cantrell also told police that this had happened before, saying that Baker had thrown away a miscarriage that she had previously had.

However, police stated in the affidavit that this was not a miscarriage and the baby was born at full term.

Police said Cantrell and Baker then kept the dead baby's body in the bag near the toilet for about four days before Baker placed it in an overnight bag and put it in the dumpster along with another black trash bag.

According to the affidavit, Baker admitted to these actions and told police that he didn't call the police because "they didn't want to catch a case." He said that Cantrell told him to throw the baby's body in the dumpster because "she couldn't do it."

Both Cantrell and Baker are still in custody, and no bond amounts have been released at this time.

The investigation remains ongoing.