Alexis Avila being handcuffed following her sentencing hearing. (Court TV/YouTube screenshot)
A 19-year-old mother in New Mexico will spend more than a decade behind bars for stuffing her newborn baby in a plastic bag filled with trash and tossing it into a commercial dumpster behind a shopping mall early last year.
State District Judge William G.W. Shoobridge on Monday ordered Alexis Avila to serve 18 years in prison after a jury last month found her guilty on one count of attempted first-degree murder and one count of intentional child abuse resulting in great bodily harm, authorities announced.
Judge Shoobridge agreed to suspend two years of the sentence, reasoning that Avila's mental health troubles and age were reasons for some leeway in her punishment. Including the 475 days she was credited with for time already served, Avila will effectively serve a 15-year sentence for her crime and be released when she is 34.
Monday's Sentencing Hearing
"This was a heinous crime. To toss one's own child into a dumpster like trash is something that is unforgivable by any mother," Judge Shoobridge told Avila after handing down the sentence. "Your child was very vulnerable. But for the grace of God and the happenstance of the three dumpster divers that found your child, we certainly would be here sentencing you on a murder case as opposed to where you are."
He said it was a miracle that the child survived in the frigid outdoor conditions where Avila discarded him.
Prosecutors sought a harsher sentence and emphasized Avila's apparent lack of remorse throughout the ordeal.
"Your Honor, what we see here is a pattern of someone who is not only showing remorse, but someone who, in fact, takes deliberate steps in her own recollection of this event to minimize her own role," Attorney General Deputy of Prosecution Mark Probasco said. "It's something that was manifest and clear in the video, which was that she was attempting to kill the most innocent life, the most helpless life, of her own child."
Avila also addressed the court on Monday, saying she did regret her actions.
"I regret that I deprived him of having a loving and caring family," she stated. "Yes, he has his dad, and he also has his dad's family, but when my family and I love, we love hard, and we love with everything we can. To my family, family is everything to us. My nephews and my niece are everything to myself and my parents."
Lea County District Attorney Dianna Luce praised the sentence, saying it was "Justice for Baby Boy," in a press release.
"We are thankful that the Court found that this especially heinous crime was a serious violent offense and that the defendant will receive a just punishment for committing this crime against an innocent newborn," Luce said in a statement following the sentencing hearing. "This sentence is a warning to all who would try to kill innocent children that you will be held accountable."
The Crime
Officers with the Hobbs Police Department and Emergency Medical Services personnel on Jan. 7, 2022, responded to a 911 call about a baby being found in a dumpster in the 1400 block of North Thorp behind a Rig Outfitters and Home Store near the state's eastern border with Texas.
Upon arriving at the scene at about 8 p.m., first responders found two males standing near the dumpster and a female sitting inside a vehicle holding the baby, Hobbs' interim Police Chief August Fons said during a news conference after the discovery.
Authorities said the baby was wrapped in a bath towel that was dirty and wet and had dried blood on him, and the umbilical cord was still attached. EMS rendered aid before rushing the child to a local hospital for treatment. Shortly after arriving at the facility, the newborn was flown to Lubbock Hospital in Texas for more specialized pediatric treatment.
The three people who found the baby told investigators they were looking for "anything of value" that may have been thrown away when they heard crying from a black garbage bag. Thinking it was a dog or a cat, they removed the bag only to discover the newborn. The female then took the baby into the car and held him to keep him warm while one of the men called for help.
Investigators then obtained surveillance camera footage from the owner of Rig Outfitters, which showed a white four-door Volkswagen Jetta pulling into the nearly empty parking lot and stopping in front of a line of three large green dumpsters at approximately 2 p.m.
A woman exits the driver's side door and opens the back passenger door. She then grabs a black bag from the backseat and throws it into the open dumpster farthest to the right before getting back in the vehicle and driving off. The incident took less than 30 seconds, but based on the footage, Fons said the baby was in the dumpster for approximately six hours.
"That video said it all," Luce said, according to a report from Albuquerque CBS and Fox affiliate KRQE. "It clearly caught her actions, her expressions, and it's still difficult for people to watch that video when you think about the fact that baby was inside that bag."