Police say that a mother and her teenaged daughter now have criminal charges after the death of the teenager's newborn child.
Master Patrolman of the South Carolina Highway Patrol, Johnathan Bragg, said Estela Ruiz-Gomez, 18, is charged with homicide by child abuse.
In the Greenville, South Carolina, the restaurant which both the mother and daughter work, law enforcement say that the teenager gave birth to her child, then the mother and teen both wrapped the baby into a trash bag and threw it into a trash can.
The grandmother of the deceased baby, Lorenza Gomez Rodriguez, 41, is charged with aiding and abetting homicide by child abuse.
Master Patrolman Bragg said Ruiz-Gomez gave birth to the baby last Wednesday in the bathroom of the restaurant before disposing of the live baby and causing it to succumb to its fate.
Police and emergency medical responders were called to the restaurant about a newborn in cardiac arrest, Bragg said.
The baby was then rushed to Greenville Memorial hospital, where he was pronounced dead shortly after the child's arrival, Bragg said. After an autopsy found both dirt and gravel on the baby’s body, investigators returned to the restaurant to look further into the matter.
Employees allegedly told investigators a different version of events than what was originally told police, Bragg said.
Employees said that Ruiz-Gomez, a bus person at the restaurant, then went into the bathroom during her break because her stomach was hurting.
They told police that one of the store managers went in to check on her, and the manager called the girl’s mother, who was also working at the restaurant as a dishwasher. The mother then said her daughter needed to go to the hospital, Bragg said.
Shortly afterward, an employee emptied the trash from the restroom and was having extreme difficulties lifting the trash bag, Bragg said.
The employee dragged the trash bag across the parking lot causing it to tear and a newborn baby fell out of the bag onto the pavement, Bragg said.
Gomez’s boyfriend, the baby’s father, was there when the baby fell out of the trash bag and picked the baby up and took him back inside of the restaurant, Bragg said.
Police said that after the baby was brought back to the restaurant to try and save its life, EMS was called to the scene.
The two women were arrested after medical examiners and detectives met to discuss the new information and came to the conclusion they clearly were trying to dispose of the newborn, Bragg said.
The death has then ruled a homicide because the coroner said the child would have likely survived had he not been put into the trash to be disposed of.
Police said Homeland Security has an active warrant against Gomez for not leaving the country when ordered to in 2016. Both are allegedly illegal immigrants and it's believed the cruel mother also was born outside of the United States.
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