Infant, Dropped From Window, Dies; Mother Arrested

An infant boy died Sunday morning after being dropped from a second-story apartment window by his 16-year-old mother who wanted to hide her pregnancy, Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies said.

The mother, an undocumented alien whose identity was withheld because of her age, apparently gave birth to the child just hours before she dropped the infant from the window of an apartment in the 11800 block of Berendo Avenue near Lennox Saturday, said Sheriff’s Deputy Chris Robbins.

A neighbor discovered the child on a sidewalk about 7 a.m. Saturday, and the infant was taken by paramedics to Martin Luther King Jr.-Drew Medical Center, where he died Sunday, said nursing supervisor Dorothy Henry.

The mother was arrested Saturday on suspicion of attempted murder and child endangering, but Robbins said investigators on Tuesday will ask the district attorney’s office to upgrade the charge to murder. The mother is being held without bail in the County-USC Medical Ward.

Sheriff’s homicide Sgt. Ray Verdugo said the teen-ager was apparently successful in hiding her pregnancy from relatives and neighbors, including an aunt and uncle with whom she was living.

“Her relatives seemed kind of shocked when they found out,” Verdugo said. “It seems sort of strange because she’s slight and the child was almost a full-term baby.”

The mother, who is not married, said she did not know she was pregnant until the child was born, Verdugo said, but investigators believe she simply was too ashamed to tell anyone she was pregnant.