A Florida woman accused of abandoning three newborns at apartment complexes on three separate occasions has been identified.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, officials used DNA testing on three children, all dropped off at Orlando apartment complexes as newborns in three separate years. After the third child was left at the same spot in July 2019, an Orlando detective submitted the children’s DNA for testing, which showed all three babies had the same mother and father.
In 2020, city commissioners approved a $5,000 expenditure to hire a company that works with genetic genealogists to help find the parents.
On Wednesday, OPD Lt. Frank Chisari said that the mother has been identified and has “several other children in her care,” the Orlando Sentinel reports.
Chisari said the mother’s other children have been well taken care of and that she’s cooperating with investigators. She told authorities that she abandoned her three newborns out of “pure desperation.”
“It seems like somebody who was just at the end of their rope,” Chisari said, declining to name the mother until he knows when, if, and what charges will be filed against her.
As of Wednesday, no charges have been filed against the mother. The father has not yet been identified.
Chisari added that the mother found out she was pregnant during the late stages of all three pregnancies. She had the babies discreetly before abandoning them.
Under the Florida Safe Haven law, newborns can be dropped off at a fire station or hospital without criminal repercussions.
“What we’re trying to do here is educate people so that they don’t make the same decisions and mistakes that this mother made,” Chisari said.
Apparently, the mother knew of the law, according to a note she left with one of the newborns. The woman left her fully-clothed baby girl on October 6, 2017, in a stairwell at Willow Key Apartments, police said.
That note asked whoever found the baby to take her to a fire station under the Safe Haven Law, which allows a parent or guardian to leave a newborn 7 days old or younger.
The first abandoned baby, a boy, was left in 2016 at the MetroWest apartments in Orlando.
A 1-day-old baby boy abandoned in July 2019 was also left at the Willow Key Apartments. The mother left with a note and wrapped in a T-shirt, police said.
The note “explained the baby was left at the location because the mother was in fear of the child’s father and the risk he posed to the child.”
Orlando police at the time said they had “concerns” for the mother’s safety.
Chisari added that it’s not likely that the mother will have visitation rights to the abandoned children. Two of the children live together with the same family, with one already adopted and the other a foster child. The third child lives with a family in another home.
One of the adoptive parents said that because of the mother, “we were able to build our family.”
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[Featured Photo: Pixabay]
