Florida authorities are searching for the parents of a newborn baby girl who was left for dead in a wooded area of central Florida.
The baby, who weighed 6.5 lbs., was found just before 2 a.m. on Saturday when the temperature was in the 50s, said Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd.
“It’s an event that we don’t see very often because there are safe haven laws,” Judd said in a video posted to the sheriff’s office Facebook page on Sunday.
In Florida, safe haven laws allow individuals to surrender unharmed newborns up to a week old, Judd said.
Judd said he christened the baby Angel Grace Lnu.
“She’s as beautiful as an angel. It’s by the grace of God she is not dead, and Lnu is: Last Name Unknown,” Judd said.
Judd said the baby was wrapped in an old blanket and was about an hour-and-a-half old when she was found.
The baby was found by neighbors in the Regal Loop Mobile Home Park, a community in Mulberry, Florida, about 10 miles south of Lakeland, Judd said.
“A lady thought she heard some cats screaming and fighting at about midnight going into Saturday morning, and then it quieted down,” Judd said. “Then, at about an hour and a half later, she heard this screaming and crying again, and she went outside and said, ‘Well, that’s a baby.’ “
She and her husband searched the area until they found “this beautiful baby girl,” Judd said. The infant was “very healthy,” but had “some insect bites for being in the woods at least an hour and a half wrapped in some old blankets and left there with still the umbilical cord and placenta attached,” he said.
“We believe she is of Hispanic descent, and we need to know who the parents are,” Judd said. “We have worked throughout the community, and no one claims to know who the mother is. From experience, usually it’s a younger person who does not want the child or has somehow hidden the presence of the child from their parents, and now they’ve abandoned this child in the woods all alone.”
The baby was found by Magdalena Gregorio Ordonez, according to ABC Action News.
“I was really surprised that they left a poor little girl on the [ground],” said her daughter, 12-year-old Eulalia Gregorio.
Judd called the Gregorio family “true heroes” for the life-saving discovery.
The sheriff’s office turned the baby over to the Department of Children and Families, Judd said.
The baby’s mother faces child neglect charges, Judd said.
“She is not required to take the child if she doesn’t want the child,” Judd said, adding: “We will hold her accountable because she left this child abandoned in the woods, ostensibly, to die.”
Judd said it’s likely the baby could have died if no one found her.
“Certainly, we saved this person from a homicide charge,” Judd said. “Had that child laid out there and died, then we would be talking about a murder investigation. Now, we are not.”
Judd said the agency will continue to search for the child’s mother in the community.
“We have gone door to door, and so far no one has cooperated,” Judd said.
Judd said they have taken the baby’s DNA to compare it to samples at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement lab.
“There’s still a lot of work to do, and over the weekend we just gathered evidence,” he said.
“All the pieces came together for that child to end up alive, healthy and well, and I look forward to that time that child is in college, and who knows... maybe that’s the little girl who finds the cure to all these horrible diseases in some lab in the future,” Judd said.
