POMONA : Mother Charged in Death of Baby Thrown to Dogs
A teen-aged woman with two children was charged with murder Thursday in the death of her third child, a newborn boy who may have been dead when he was thrown into a yard occupied by two pit bulls.
Araceli Banda Garcia, 19, is scheduled to be arraigned Nov. 17.
Garcia, arrested Tuesday and held on $1-million bail, is charged with single counts of murder and child endangerment in the death of her baby, whose body was found last Friday afternoon in the 500 block of West Orange Grove Avenue in Pomona.
Deputy Dist. Atty. Garcy Hearnsberger said an autopsy indicated the nine-pound boy suffered a crushing injury to his head and a puncture in the chest, which the coroner’s office believes caused the death.
Authorities believe Garcia gave birth to the baby Friday morning, killed him and threw the body over the back fence.
Investigators initially believed that one or both of the pit bulls had mauled the baby, whose body was missing an arm and testicles. But the large dog was penned up and the other was a puppy.
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