Maryuri Estefany Calix-Macedo Wilmington, North Carolina mother charged w/ attempted murder after leaving newborn baby in trash can outside church.
A North Carolina mother has been arrested after allegedly leaving her newborn baby in a trash can outside a Wilmington church.
Maryuri Estefany Calix-Macedo, 21, was taken into custody on a first-degree attempted murder charge by Wilmington police after a woman walking her dog near Christ Community Church discovered the newborn boy Thursday, the News & Observer reports.
Police announced the woman’s arrest on Saturday, days after releasing a statement that a newborn boy was ‘left for dead’ in a trash can in the church’s parking lot until someone heard his cries and called cops.
‘I knew he was alive when I found him and I knew that was a good thing,’ Cynthia Burton, who discovered the child, told WECT. ‘But I knew I didn’t have a lot of time.’
Burton found the boy — who ‘cried out to live,’ she said — covered in blood with his umbilical cord still wrapped around his neck. At the time of discovery, the boy had been put in a sealed garbage bag.
North Carolina safe haven law
‘I know God put me at that place at that time,’ Burton reiterated.
The boy, who was taken to a hospital after he was found, was ‘healthy and doing well,’ Wilmington police said Thursday.
A regard of Maryuri Estefany Macedo‘s Facebook page appeared to show the ‘engaged’ woman being the mother of at least two other young children.
Calix-Macedo, who was initially taken to New Hanover Regional Medical Center for an assessment, was later booked into the New Hanover County Detention Facility, where she remained held on $800,000 bond, jail records show.
It remained unclear why the woman declined to utilize the state’s safe haven law which allows the parent to remain anonymous and to be shielded from criminal liability and prosecution for child endangerment, abandonment, or neglect in exchange for surrendering a baby up to seven days old to a safe haven.
