May 13, 2008 8:58 am US/Eastern
Police Make Arrest In Abandoned Queens Infant Case
Woman Faces Multiple Charges, Including Child Endangerment
Reporting
Jay Dow
QUEENS (CBS) ―
Police arrested a woman they believe abandoned a baby girl on the front steps of a home in Queens.
The 31-year-old woman faces charges of reckless endangerment, abandonment of a child and endangering the welfare of a child.
Christina Yu, 24, discovered the infant outside her home on Holly Avenue when she heard faint cries from the child. Yu found the girl between her storm door and front door shortly before 10 on Sunday night as she was coming down the stairs to meet a friend.
"I thought it was an animal that got stuck in between the two doors," she told CBS 2. "I asked my friend to help. When he opened the door, there was a baby lying there."
The baby was wrapped in a blanket and had a black bag filled with diapers and baby formula by her side.
Yu said the minute she picked the infant up, she stopped crying.
"I was in shock. It's not normal to leave a baby on a doorstep. I called my dad and he said to call the cops," she said.
Yu said it was tough to tell the baby's ethnicity.
"That was a mystery," she said. "It looked like it could be an Asian baby. It looked like it could be a mix. I'm not sure."
The baby girl, believed to be just three days old, was taken Flushing Medical Center, where under the Safe Haven Act, the parents could've left her without facing charges.
Yu says she used to watch the woman's older son during services at livingstone church in corona, where her father is the pastor.
The child has not yet been identified.
(© 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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