The Convict Chronicles

Dumpster Baby

In summer of 2000 the police department received a call of a crying baby next to a dumpster at an apartment complex. When officers arrived at the scene they found a newly born baby girl wrapped in a blanket  next to a dumpster by the carport area of the apartment complex. The umbilical cord was still attached and had been clamped off by a piece of string. The baby could not have been more than a couple of hours old according to the officers at the scene. An ambulance was called and the baby was taken to the hospital to be checked out pending contact by social services.

This was not my type of case but I tagged along with Inv. Joe Soto that day because I was curious. Joe Soto was one of the best and hardest working detectives I had ever known. He did not at all need my help. At the time of this call he was working a lot family type cases so this was assigned to him. We made our way to the apartment complex to check for witnesses. We knocked on every door in the complex and no one saw anything suspicious. Four people reported hearing a crying baby and 2 calls had been made to the police that morning. We found one of the persons that had called the police and spoke to the lady in apartment 114. Her name was Mary and she was about 30 years old and the mother of 2 young girls. She told us that she made the call because the baby would not stop crying. She also told us she had never heard a baby cry before and as far as she knew none of her neighbors were pregnant so the baby could not belong to anyone there. The other person that had called the police live right next door in apt. # 112 and we went to knock on her door. Mary then called out to us that she was not there because she works with a doctor somewhere in town. We thanked her and went to the office to get more information on the renter at apt. #112. The girl in that apartment worked with a pediatrician in town and we went to her work. Her name was Jennifer Rojas. She made some time for us and we spoke with briefly. She was a cute, petite young girl in her early twenties with brown hair and brown eyes. She told us she heard the baby crying outside and also heard some adults talking. She then heard the adults arguing and the baby still crying so she called the police. She claimed she looked out the window but could not see them. We thanked her for her time and went on our way.

Soto went to the hospital and checked to see if any persons had made arrangements to come in and have the baby with them and then did not show. He also went to all the local obstetricians and checked for the same thing. Next he checked with planned parenthood for more leads but came up with nothing.

After all that Soto came to my office and sat down and we talked the case out like we often did. Many investigators like to work alone and think that is the best way but it really isn’t . Often in many cases the answer is right there in front of you just can’t see it because you are trying too hard. Sometimes you just need a pair of fresh eyes. Now this wasn’t what you would consider a major criminal case but it was important. Someone abandoned a baby. But if they really didn’t care they simply could have killed the baby or dumped it where there were no people around. We concluded that the person who did this cared and wanted the baby found. We also figured they knew the area well because many of the apartments were empty in the different sections but the baby was placed in between two sections that were full where people had a better chance of hearing it cry. There is no coincidence in police work. The person knew the area well. 

Soto and I went back to the apartment complex to speak to the first lady and she was not home. It was after 5 so we checked at apt. # 112 and found Jennifer Rojas at home. She said she was on the way out so she had very little time. I asked her where she was going and she said she was going to attend a kids birthday party at the local Peter Piper Pizza. We then told her okay and we would make contact with her the next day.

Jennifer got in her car and took off down the apt. complex and then turned north. Soto and I looked at each other at the same time. The pizza place was in the other direction. There was no reason to lie to us but she did. That was a mistake. We got in our car and followed her at a distance. She drove into town and stopped behind a restaurant. She then pulled in behind the restaurant and got out of her car. She pulled a trash bag and threw it in the restaurant dumpster and then left. The dumpster is in a public alleyway and no one, not even the restaurant owner has any expectation of privacy there. We got the trash bag and opened it. Now I didn’t know it then but later found out what I was looking at. It was a placenta or what they call the after birth. Along with bloody towels and bloody blankets. Jennifer had a lot of explaining to do. Somebody had a baby and she was helping them get rid of it, or so we thought. The truth, it turned out, was stranger and harder to believe.

Jennifer was the only child of a very religious father and mother. She was still living at home and going to the local university while also working as a medical technician at the doctor’s office. She got pregnant and couldn’t tell anyone. Not even her boyfriend knew. She was very petite and tried not to eat much so she wouldn’t show. She bought larger clothes and even larger scrubs for work and no one, not even the doctor noticed. When her breast started growing she started packing her breast with ice at night so they wouldn’t grow. This went on for nine months. On the morning we got the call she had gone into labor at about 3 in the morning and had the baby at 6 in the morning. She did this all by herself in her bed. She cleaned the baby up. Got everything together in a trash bag, wrapped the baby in a blanket and placed her outside. She heard the baby crying and when the police didn’t show she called the police herself. When she saw the police get there she left for work and put in a full day. No one at work noticed anything wrong with her and she did not complain about anything.

Jennifer broke down when we spoke to her. She gave a full confession. Soto arrested her for child abandonment and endangerment. It was a second degree felony and she went to jail. The court later gave her supervised visitation of the baby and I did not hear much about her case until I looked her up recently. After she served 2 months county time her prison sentence was deferred and she went on probation for 5 years. She finished that early. They gave her the baby back under the condition that she live with her parents for the first year and attend mandatory parenting classes. I found her and her baby on facebook just last week when I was thinking about the case. They are both doing fine. 

Every time I hear a woman complain about childbirth pain or hear them compare regular births with c-sections, or hear them talk about how much time someone should take off of work I think about this case. This young girl did it all alone. No doctors, no pain killers, no nothing. And she went to work 4 hours later after not sleeping all night and giving birth to a beautiful 6 pound 9 ounce girl.

I cannot for a moment imagine the pain and fear Jennifer went through that night. I don't know how she did it or even why she went so far without help. All I know is that she was in a place in her life where the fear and the pain of what she went through were preferable to letting anyone know. It bothers me that a young girl, a daughter, should ever need to feel that way.