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A teen has been arrested for allegedly leaving a deceased baby girl in a Safe Haven Baby Box in Blackfoot, Idaho, police said.
“The Blackfoot Police Department (BPD) said officers arrested 18-year-old Angel N. Newberry in Twin Falls on a felony Bingham County arrest warrant for not reporting the death. She has been transported to the Bingham County Jail,” KTVB7 reported on Friday.
Due to the sensitive nature of the case, police said they are limiting the information they release to the public. However, they said there is a potential for more charges to be filed in the case, according to the report.
Law enforcement officials said:
The Safe Haven Baby Box is intended to safely and anonymously allow custodial parents to surrender a newborn under 30 days old without legal repercussions, provided the child is unharmed. Unfortunately, the placement of a harmed or deceased infant is not protected under this system or Idaho law.
As Breitbart News previously reported, the deceased newborn baby girl was found in Idaho’s only Safe Haven Baby Box on Oct. 13, at the Grove Creek Medical Center in Blackfoot, which is about two hours from Twin Falls.
Staff with Grove Creek Medical Center immediately responded to an alarm that indicated that a baby had been placed in the box and removed her within a minute, Safe Haven Baby Boxes said in a press release posted to Facebook. Upon removal, staff “quickly realized” the infant had died long before she had been placed in the baby box, according to the organization.
Idaho’s Safe Haven law allows for the surrender of an infant who is unharmed and healthy, meaning this surrender was not legal.
“We are heartbroken. Let this be clear: this is an illegal, deadly abandonment. Anonymity is only allowed when an infant is safely surrendered completely unharmed,” Safe Haven Baby Boxes Founder Monica Kelsey said in a statement at the time. “We are fully cooperating with the investigation and providing all information we possess to local authorities. When the baby was placed in the box, she was wrapped in a blanket with the placenta still attached.”
“As the only organization that provides an anonymous surrender option, we are on the front lines of educating the public on how this program works. We will continue to educate citizens on the stark differences between illegal abandonment and legal, safe surrender of an unharmed newborn,” she added.
Kelsey posted a video update to Facebook soon after the discovery, stating that the parent’s identity was known to police.
“It is not because there’s cameras on these boxes, there is no cameras on these boxes,” she said. “It was either old fashioned police work or she stepped forward.”
Baby boxes are temperature-controlled incubators often built into exterior walls of fire stations, police stations, and hospitals that can be accessed from the inside. At-risk mothers can safely and legally place their newborns inside. Once a baby is inside the baby box, the outside door locks, and the mother has time to leave before an alarm goes off alerting first responders or hospital staff to the child’s presence.
The baby is then quickly removed and sent to a hospital for a wellness check. From there, the baby is usually placed into state custody and is often adopted quickly.
The Idaho box, which is located at 350 N Meridian, was officially blessed in July.
Idaho lawmakers unanimously passed an amendment to the existing Safe Haven Baby Act in March allowing Safe Haven Baby Boxes to be used, according to the Idaho State Journal. Idaho Gov. Brad Little (R) quickly signed the law, and it went into effect on July 1.
In Idaho, healthy, unharmed infants up to 30-days-old may be surrendered to baby boxes or face to face to hospitals, fire stations, EMS providers, physicians, and nurses, according to Safe Haven Baby Boxes.
Fifty-two infants have been legally surrendered to Safe Haven Baby Boxes since 2017, and each infant has been adopted, according to the organization.
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.
