"The doll was killed because it was thrown into a dumpster and abandoned."

PalmThe prosecutor in the case of the newborn who died after being thrown into a dumpster in Portocristo in November 2023 said this Monday, at the start of the public hearing, that "the doll was born alive and arrived warm at the hospital." She made this statement in her preliminary indictment to the members of the jury trying the baby's mother and uncle for murder, and the baby's aunt for failure to provide assistance. "The doll was killed because they threw it into the dumpster and abandoned it," the representative of the Public Prosecutor's Office stated at the start of the trial.

The mother's defense attorney, Miguel Arbona, admitted that what the woman did was "a barbaric act," but asserted that "she is not a murderer." Meanwhile, the lawyer defending the child's uncle says the man didn't know his sister-in-law was pregnant or that he was throwing the dead doll into the dumpster. "He could never have imagined he had put a human fetus in the dumpster," he stated.

"They didn't stop for a minute to see if she was alive."

The prosecutor insisted that Yolanda, the mother of the dead doll, agreed with her brother-in-law to throw the baby in the trash can "without stopping for a minute to see if it was alive, which it was." "Everything happened very quickly; they only worried about fleeing the scene. Neither of them went to the hospital, which was two minutes away," the prosecutor recounted regarding the defendants' actions when the events occurred.

Along these lines, she stated that the doll was located in the dumpster because a neighbor called. "The baby arrived warm at the hospital; it was born alive," she reiterated in her statement.

For her part, the victim's mother's defense argued that the woman is not a murderer: "She has done something reprehensible, and that disgusts us all, but she has not done what the Public Prosecutor's Office says."

In addition, the lawyer defending the child's uncle recalled that those accused of committing this "very serious" crime are free.

Incompatible with life

During his intervention, the mother's lawyer announced that during the trial he will try to draw attention to the discrepancies in the statements made during the investigation, noting that two doctors initially stated that the baby's condition was incompatible with life. According to the lawyer, the autopsies are also missing data.

The lawyer for the doll's uncle, contradicting the prosecutor, added that the evidence that the baby was born alive and viable is "weak."

The lawyer for the third defendant—the aunt—who is charged with failure to provide assistance, reiterated that not all ethically reprehensible behavior is a crime. Returning to the theory that the baby was stillborn, he noted that "you cannot help a dead person."

Testimonies

In the first session of the public hearing, witnesses included the sister of the baby's mother, whose home she had allegedly gone to clean herself. "She told me she had lost the baby," she noted, recalling the moment the defendant came to her home, where they had parked, although she added that she didn't ask for anything else. According to the account, her sister arrived dressed only in a T-shirt, covered in blood, and without underwear.

One of the neighbors from the blog also testified, stating that she saw the baby's uncle "drop a placenta" and that she thought "it must be from a dead animal." During the interrogation, a call to the 112 emergency service was played from another neighbor, who told them that she had seen "a baby or an animal" being thrown into a dumpster and that a woman was "screaming and crying" in a car.

Along the same lines, several local residents have agreed in explaining that they saw the man throwing something into the container and a woman inside the car, acting nervous or scared.

For her part, a doctor from SAMU 061 who attended the call explained that when she arrived at the scene she didn't find anyone until a local police officer told her that they had taken the baby to the "ordinary" hospital when he saw that he was moving one of his arms after rescuing him.

Care at the hospital

The doctor, who later assisted in resuscitation at Llevant Hospital, acknowledged that at one point she suggested discontinuing the procedures given the state of the baby's body. "I had the feeling it wasn't viable," she stated.

The doctor, who emphasized that for her "it was more of a miscarriage," recalled that the scales of the lifeless baby weighed between 140 and 160 grams and that the body was "excessively small." The doctor noted that "she saw no external injuries that could imply violence."

In response to questions from the prosecutor, she responded that she could not confirm that the baby was stillborn. According to the doctor, the arm movement she reported to the police officer could have been a spasm. "My impression is that it was very small and on the verge of viability," she said.

"At 25 weeks of gestation in a good hospital with a good newborn unit it could have been viable, but having been born on the street and treated in a regional hospital, the probabilities drop drastically," he stated.

Monday's session concluded with a witness statement from a nursing assistant at the hospital, who said that the baby was "very cold" and that they tried to keep him warm.

The Prosecutor's Office is requesting a life sentence subject to review.

The Prosecutor's Office accuses them of murder and requests that they be sentenced to life imprisonment. The Public Prosecutor's Office accuses a third person, who was present at the events, of failure to provide assistance and is seeking a fine of €5,400.

The events under trial occurred on November 3, 2023, when, according to the indictment, the woman, 26 or 27 weeks pregnant, intervened inside a vehicle in which her sister and brother-in-law were traveling. After giving birth, and despite being near a hospital, the mother handed the newborn's body to the man, who then threw it into a nearby dumpster and fled the scene, according to the prosecutor's version.