Sonia Cristal Jimenez (Las Cruces Police Department). Background: The portable toilets where Jimenez allegedly left her newborn daughter to die (KOAT).
A 38-year-old woman in New Mexico is accused of killing her newborn, allegedly giving birth to a baby girl in a portable toilet before tossing the newborn into the waste tank, leaving her to drown.
Sonia Cristal Jimenez is currently facing one first-degree felony count of intentional child abuse resulting in death, authorities announced.
According to a news release from the Las Cruces Police Department, at about 10:30 p.m. on Saturday, a local hospital notified police that Jimenez's boyfriend had brought her to the hospital and it was apparent she had just given birth to a baby. However, neither Jimenez nor the adult male who accompanied her to the hospital had a child with them.
Police spoke to the boyfriend who told them that he and Jimenez had just been at Burn Lake and that Jimenez had spent a lot of time in the portable toilets, according to a report from the Las Cruces Sun. The lake is about 220 miles south of Albuquerque.
Officers responded to the area off Burn Lake Road where the couple had been and discovered the newborn's body "in the holding tank of a portable toilet," the department said. Firefighters with the Las Cruces Fire Department reached the scene a short while later and recovered the "lifeless baby" from the toilet's "holding tank." She was pronounced dead at the scene.
Investigators said the evidence indicated that Jimenez "gave birth to a live baby, cut the umbilical cord and placed the child in the holding tank where she drowned."
"An autopsy conducted Monday at the New Mexico Medical Investigator's Office in Albuquerque revealed that the baby was alive when she was dropped into the portable toilet," the release states. "The autopsy showed that she breathed and swallowed the blue chemical liquid commonly used in portable restroom sanitation. The blue chemical was found in the baby's trachea, lungs and stomach confirming that she breathed and swallowed the liquid while alive."
Police said they believe Jimenez's boyfriend, whose name has not been publicly released, was not aware that Jimenez had given birth at the lake. They do not anticipate charging him in connection with the baby's death.
An arrest warrant was issued for Jimenez, who was taken into custody on Wednesday morning and transported to the Dona Ana County Detention Center for processing. She is currently being held without bond. It was not immediately clear when she was scheduled to appear in court.