As demoralizing as it can be to even consider, the abandonment of newborn babies to the care of strangers is probably older than recorded history. Although some cases include notes explaining why somebody came to have a baby lying on their doorstep, that’s not always the case.
But no matter the reasoning behind it, the reality is that circumstances left a parent with a child they felt they couldn’t guarantee the safety or proper care of. And whether this was the result of panic or their perception of someone else’s character, they decided to spring the responsibilities associated with this child on somebody else.
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Sad as it may be, this situation is hardly unheard of. What is highly unusual, however, is a case where the same parent abandoned multiple children over the course of years.
However, it seems that Florida police have exactly those circumstances on their hands.
Back in 2016, a newborn boy was discovered outside of a unit at the Willow Key apartment complex in Orlando, Florida.
As Click Orlando reported , police didn’t release any details of this case at the time, but later cases of infant abandonment in this area led them to start seeing a pattern.
In October of the following year, a baby girl was discovered in a stairwell of the same complex.
This baby was left with a note instructing whoever found her to bring her to a fire station or safe haven location. As Click Orlando reported , she was later put into foster care.
It wasn’t until a third baby was found at Willow Key in July of last year, however, that the similarity of the three cases seemed like more than a coincidence.
As NBC4i reported , this boy was a day old at the time and was found wrapped in a polo shirt.
As with the girl, this baby was left with a note, but this one made it a little clearer as to why these abandonment cases kept happening.
This note explained that the mother had the baby alone in her bathroom and claimed that the father had attempted to kill both her and the boy.
The note, as shown by NBC4i, also implored whoever found him to keep the baby secret and take him to the hospital and further emphasized that the father is a dangerous man. The mother also apologized in the note and said she tried to clean the baby and feed him as best she could.
The similar circumstances of their abandonment led police to suspect a genetic connection between the three children and a DNA test confirmed that they are indeed siblings.
According to Click Orlando , Police Chief Orlando Rolon is now requesting $5,000 from the city’s Law Enforcement Trust Fund for genealogy analysis from a Denver-based firm called United Data Connect to identify the children’s parents.
As a detective involved in the case wrote to Chief Rolon, “Based on the egregious and neglectful behavior of the parent(s), and the bizarre facts of this case, unlike any other documented case, it is imperative to conduct a well-being check of all involved parties.”
h/t: Click Orlando , NBC4i .
