Woman Held in Slaying of Newborn

A 21-year-old Santa Ana woman has been charged with murdering her newborn boy by wrapping him in a plastic bag and dumping him in a trash bin last month, police said Monday.

Teresa Sanchez, who works as a motel maid in Tustin, was arrested Thursday at the Santa Ana apartment she shares with her mother and two brothers, said Santa Ana Police Sgt. Bob Clark. On Friday, the district attorney’s office filed one count of murder against her.

“Police believe Sanchez is the mother of the child, although the motive is unknown,” Clark said. “As a result of evidence at the crime scene, witness statements and conflicting statements made by Sanchez to the police, detectives found sufficient probable cause to arrest her.”

On March 16, two people who were rummaging for recyclables found the dead infant in a large trash bin behind a medical clinic in the 800 block of West 17th Street in Santa Ana.

A preliminary autopsy showed that the child had died from asphyxiation, perhaps as soon as one hour after birth.

A medical exam issued after Sanchez’s arrest “did indicate that she had recently given birth,” Clark said. The biggest lead in the case, however, came from an anonymous caller who identified Sanchez as the possible mother of the child, he said.

Sanchez’s brother, 18-year-old Efrain Sanchez, said Monday that the family believes she has been wrongly accused.

“We’re angry about it,” he said.

Efrain Sanchez said the family moved to Santa Ana four years ago from the Mexican state of Michoacan, and his sister had since been working as a maid in Tustin. He said he did not know whether his sister had been pregnant.

Her 1 1/2-year-old son remains with family members, he said. Sanchez had been living with Efrain, her mother, her older brother and his wife, police said.

Five infants--three alive and two dead--have been found abandoned in the past three months in parking lots and hedges across Orange County, a number called staggering by child welfare experts. Typically, the county handles only half a dozen such incidents in an entire year.