Probes Launched Into Death of Infant Born to Disabled Woman

A Santa Ana board-and-care home was closed Thursday as police and state regulators launched separate investigations into the death of an infant born there to a mentally disabled resident who later arrived at a hospital with the baby’s body in a plastic bag, authorities said.

Staff at the facility where the woman lives discovered the nearly full-term baby when they went to change the diaper of the woman, who has the mental capacity of a 2-year-old, police said.

Detectives spent Thursday afternoon interviewing caregivers at the Camden Westview Care Home, asking why they did not report their discovery to authorities but instead drove the woman about 1 1/2 miles to Fountain Valley Regional Hospital and Medical Center.

“Whenever there’s a medical emergency, you would expect that 911 would be called instead of gathering up the people who need medical attention and transporting them in a private vehicle,” Santa Ana Police Sgt. Raul Luna said.

Caregivers are required under state law to report such a pregnancy, but regulators said Camden never made such notification.

State officials immediately moved the other two patients living at Camden to another facility until the probes are complete. Camden is housed in a single-family home on a residential cul-de-sac.

“What we’re trying to determine is how would you miss something like this,” said Blanca Barna, spokeswoman for the California Department of Social Services. “Our first priority is to look at this facility and look at what could have happened and what could have gone wrong.”

Detectives are treating the 30-year-old woman’s pregnancy as a possible rape, since under California law she cannot legally consent to sex because of her mental age, said Luna.

Coroner’s officials are scheduled to perform an autopsy on the baby today to try to ascertain whether the infant was stillborn. Until that determination is made, investigators are treating the death as a possible homicide.

Police sought permission late Thursday to search the home for more evidence in the case, Luna said. Investigators, he said, hope to find logs of visitors to the home in an effort to track down whoever impregnated the woman, whose name was withheld.

Two women worked as caregivers at the home, Luna said. Representatives of the company that operates the home, Westview Services Inc., refused to comment about the investigations.