CCTV has emerged showing a woman buying towels at a supermarket in the moments before she ditched a newborn baby at a nativity scene outside a church in NY. The baby, a boy, but whose name is not known, was estimated to be only four-to-five-hours old, police said. The nativity scene had just been set up by the custodian who then took a lunch break, and returned to find the newborn. “(I) heard in the distance a baby crying”, the custodian said. “I walked to the little nativity home we had installed inside the church”, he continued. I couldn’t believe my eyes. “The same towels her baby was found swaddled in”, noted Inside Edition.
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“With umbilical cord still attached, and wrapped in a blanket, the baby was found placed in the manger. He was next to the Virgin (Mary)”, Mr Jose told the New York Daily News. Thinking it was a mother with a child he went back to work before realizing that there was no other adult in the church.
Plaza says this church is like a family and already several members have stepped forward and offered to adopt the child.
This is one “abandonment” story that resulted in a attractive outcome.
New York City police Lt. Tarik Sheppard said police are trying to locate a woman seen on a church surveillance tape dropping off the infant.
Yet local police have said the mother, who has not been traced, could still face charges – as the law states she was obliged to tell someone where her baby had been left. The infant must be left with an appropriate person, or an appropriate person needs to be notified of the child’s location.
Witnesses are being sought in a bid to track down the baby’s mother.
“I was crying just watching the news“, parishioner Evelyn Plaza, who has attended the church for 25 years, said. He added that the people think the baby was left in the parish so he should stay in it.
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The priest immediately called 911, and the abandoned infant was rushed to Jamaica Hospital, where he was reported in “good condition”.
