by Jada Wittow
This Sunday, just before midnight, a man named Emmanuel Dugger was on his way home in Northeast Washington, DC when he saw something wrapped in a brown-and-red-striped towel on his neighbor’s stoop. Dugger said that since it was not moving, he thought it may have been a doll. He was unsure, so he went inside his house and got his fathers’ help. The two men discovered that wrapped in the towel was a small baby girl, apparently less than a week old. She was naked, unconscious, and bleeding from both the nose and the mouth. The house where the infant was dropped off belonged to a schoolteacher who had children of his own.
The Dugger’s took the small baby inside their home and tried to warm her up as they called 911. DC Fire and Emergency Medical services personnel as well as police arrived soon. They took the baby to Children’s National Medical Center. At 2:21 a.m. on Monday, the unidentified infant was pronounced dead.
On Monday the DC Police reported that they are investigating the circumstances of the death of the baby and await autopsy results for further information. A homicide supervisor with the metro police said they would like to speak to the parents of the child.
Police also said that because of the safe haven law enacted by the district in 2009, the mother could have dropped the infant off within the first seven days if she realized she couldn’t care for the infant. The safe haven law allows parents of unwanted babies who are less than one week old to be dropped off at police stations, fire stations, or hospitals. Unless the child has been abused, the parents do not risk prosecution by dropping their baby off. For more information on safe haven laws, go here.
For more information about the DC case, go here.
Check out our entries about other cases in the Washington area
