Global Courant 2023-05-02 01:47:45
A New Mexico teenage mother has been sentenced to 18 years in prison for throwing her newborn son into a garbage can behind a shopping mall. Alexis Avila was 18 years old when she wrapped the boy in a towel and put it in the garbage bag before throwing him in the trash.
A New Mexico teen mother was sentenced Monday to a mandatory 18-year prison term for throwing her newborn son into a garbage can behind a mall, but a state district judge cited mental health issues and the defendant’s age to warrant two years of the sentence to suspend.
Jurors convicted 19-year-old Alexis Avila of child molestation with grievous bodily harm after a days-long trial last month in which her public defender argued her actions were not premeditated and that a previously undiagnosed mental disorder was involved.
Judge William Shoobridge told Avila that if he hadn’t had luck and the grace of God, he would have considered a sentence in a murder case, as there was a good chance the child would have died had it not been for three people found by the dumpster that winter’s day in Hobbs, near the Texas border.
He ordered Avila to continue with treatment, medication, and her higher education while she served her sentence.
“You gave yourself a life sentence for knowing what you did to your child,” he told her. “And you also gave your son that same life sentence, and that’s probably just as hard to deal with as the time you might have in prison.”
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Avila told the judge she wants to learn how to deal with stress and anxiety so she can deal with her emotions in a healthier way. She also said she regretted missing her son’s early milestones and denied him maternal love.
“I regret that his first hours of life were traumatic, and I regret that he will always have this in the back of his mind and think that I don’t love him because that is what he will read and hear,” she said. “But that’s not true at all. I really love him. I really do.”
Avila was arrested in January 2022 after throwing him in the trash.
Police said a group of people were looking through the dumpster when they heard what they thought was a dog or kitten. They moved a garbage bag and found a baby wrapped in a towel with the umbilical cord still attached. They tried to keep the boy warm until the police and ambulance arrived.
Investigators used surveillance video to identify a car suspected of being involved. That led them to Avila.
A New Mexico mother has been convicted of throwing her baby in a garbage can.
Search warrants for Avila’s car and her family’s home turned up blood evidence, clothing, and a towel.
Prosecutors argued at trial that Avila made a choice to ignore her pregnancy and put her newborn son in two trash bags, tie them with a hair tie, and throw the boy in the trash. They told the jurors that the boy had been out in the cold for more than six hours.
The judge told Avila that she had the option to correct her actions within that time, but she did not.
Public defender Ibukun Adepoju disputed that Avila made a premeditated attempt to kill her baby. Abepoju said that while Avila’s actions were wrong, they were a result of her bipolar disorder and she was dissociated and detached from her feelings.
Adepoju told the judge that Avila did not pose a threat to the public, has made progress with her therapy and does not take lightly what she did to her child.
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“She is not cold-blooded but needs mental health treatment,” Adepoju said in a statement, noting that her client will be 34 years old when she is released from prison and that continued therapy and education during incarceration will be crucial. will be important, so she can have a meaningful life.
Avila’s case also sparked fresh conversation in New Mexico communities and among lawmakers about the state’s safe haven law, which allows parents to leave a baby under 90 days old in a safe location without criminal consequences.
Such laws were first passed in state legislatures in the early 2000s in response to reports of gruesome infant killings and abandonments, which received widespread media attention.
New Mexico lawmakers passed a bill in 2022 to expand the state’s Safe Haven program and provide funds to build one baby box for each county where a baby can be abandoned. Española has a box and next week Hobbs will celebrate the installation of a box in that community.
Boxes have also been installed in several other states. Florida is the latest to consider legislation allowing the boxes.