Hold Off on Funeral Plans for Baby Girl, Group Told

Plans by a group of church volunteers to provide a funeral for a newborn girl found dead Thursday at the UCI Medical Center in Orange have been put on hold, according to the Orange County coroner’s office.

On Friday, parishioners from St. Bonaventure Catholic Church in Huntington Beach, led by Janet Perricone, arranged for a donated burial plot and services for the infant, and a local mortuary offered a casket.

That same day, police located a teen-age girl who they believe is the mother.

The young woman, whose name was not released because she is a minor, remained under psychiatric observation Saturday at UCI Medical Center, hospital officials said.

Perricone said Saturday that the coroner’s office informed her that if no family member claimed the child’s body, it could be released to a mortuary.

However, Deputy Cullen Ellingburgh said Saturday that the coroner’s office will ask the county to look for relatives of the baby, and if any are found, they will be permitted to claim the body.

Even if the mother is not competent to make a decision regarding the body, Ellingburgh said, “her family members may want to act on her behalf.”

Perricone said she acted following a report that, if unclaimed, the child’s body would be disposed of as medical waste.

It “was amazing . . . that people responded in such a beautiful way, so generously,” she said, referring fellow church members’ response to her efforts to arrange a funeral.