Newborn Found in Car : Abandoned: A woman returning from Christmas shopping finds the baby in her auto. A note tells only the time of birth. Police say they hope to find child’s relatives.

At first, retired schoolteacher Betty Mitchell thought she had the wrong car.

It was Monday evening, and she had just returned to the parking lot after shopping for Christmas decorations at a Torrance crafts store. There, on the front seat of her station wagon, was a newborn baby, lying in a brown wicker basket.

Diapered with damask cloth held together by a safety pin, the baby boy was dirty and crying. A handwritten note gave the time and date of his birth--Nov. 28 at 10:15 a.m.--and nothing else.

“It was a perfect, little Caucasian baby with sandy gold hair,” Mitchell said Tuesday. “It was cushioned on folded drapery material, pink with roses on it, and he had on a little shirt, one of those that snaps at the crotch. A pacifier had fallen out of his mouth and he was crying.”

It was dark out and cold, and after taking a quick look around the parking lot, Mitchell took the baby home and called the police.

“To have a baby and leave it like this, you have to be so desperate, but it showed they cared about it that they left it where they knew it would get attention,” Mitchell said.

After calling the police, Mitchell left the baby with her adult daughter and ran out for baby formula and diapers.

“I have five children and eight grandchildren,” Mitchell said. “The youngest (grandchildren) are twin boys who are 6 months old. So I was just recently in practice.”

The police called paramedics, who determined from the appearance of the baby’s umbilical cord that the child had been born 12 to 24 hours before Mitchell found him. The mother probably delivered the child herself and is probably in need of medical help, Torrance Police Sgt. David Smith said.

When news reports about the baby’s abandonment broke Tuesday morning, the Torrance Police Department immediately began to receive calls from people interested in adopting him. The baby was taken to Los Angeles County Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, found to be in good condition, and then placed in the custody of the county Department of Children’s Services.

Mitchell said she was baffled as to why the baby was left in her car. But she said she suspects that whoever abandoned the infant had noticed that she had left her station wagon unlocked.

“And I do have a Christian symbol on the back, so they might think possibly that (the person who owns the car) would care,” she said. “Having had children, I can’t imagine what it would feel like to leave (a baby). It would tear your heart out. . . . I feel so sad for whoever felt this was a necessary thing.”

The Torrance baby is the third to be abandoned in the county since the weekend, said Lili Ahmadi, a spokeswoman for the children’s services department. The department has received about 25 calls about abandoned babies in the last year, she said.

“That’s really a rather small number, but even one is too many,” Ahmadi said. “It’s just a shame. We really wish parents would pick up the phone if they’re not capable of taking care of a child and call our hot line.”

Police and state officials are urging relatives of the baby to come forward to claim him.

“Our first choice is obviously to locate the families--it’s always our intention to place any child with their own biological relatives when possible,” Ahmadi said. But he added that some abandoned babies are placed in foster care.