Mother’s Day abandonment still mystery

A seemingly healthy baby boy with 10 fingers and 10 toes was born on Mother's Day 2008.

The newborn was just a few hours old when his first day of life became his last.

His body was discovered inside a women's restroom at the Excalibur.

The tiny body was found in a trash can, shrouded in a pillowcase and towels, then tucked inside an Excalibur gift bag.

A hotel employee made the discovery shortly after 9:30 p.m.

The baby had an intact placenta and an umbilical cord attached to his body, Las Vegas police said.

On a day when motherhood is celebrated in nations around the world, detectives found themselves at a ghastly crime scene, trying to determine why a newborn had been cast off like household garbage.

"Cases like this are always sad and mind-boggling," Homicide Lt. Lew Roberts said.

For someone to carry a child to term and then discard it like that "is unconscionable," he said.

One year later, Las Vegas police are no closer to finding who abandoned the anonymous baby boy.

Police are treating his May 11, 2008, death as a homicide because an autopsy confirmed the baby had drawn breath and was not stillborn.

Sgt. Russell Shoemaker said the infant was white.

The Clark County coroner's office preserved the baby's DNA and stored it on a national database in hopes of locating the parents. The coroner's office would not comment on the case.

Police have combed through 150 hours of surveillance footage of a hallway outside the Excalibur restroom where the newborn was found.

The footage also captured a bank of elevators adjacent to the restroom that led to hotel rooms.

Roberts said the sheer number of people caught on video made the investigation difficult.

"You can imagine the amount of people coming and going from that bathroom at one time," Roberts said. "People carrying suitcases and bags from gifts shops, things like that. That never yielded any information for us."

Police also checked on whether an ambulance had been called to the Excalibur or other nearby casinos before the infant's body was found.

They looked at whether hotel employees might have given birth that day.

Roberts said the investigation has "hit a brick wall."

"We never got one tip. We never got one call. We never got anything," Roberts said. "Which leads us to believe the person is a tourist from out of state."

Las Vegas police have hit the same wall before and eventually broke through it in similar cases.

In June 2006, a dead baby girl was found in the trash processing area of The Mirage. Police determined that a 16-year-old girl was the mother. She had concealed her pregnancy and given birth to a stillborn infant at the resort. Police said she panicked and discarded the body.

The girl was identified through surveillance video.

The same year, the battered body of a 3-year-old girl was found in a dumpster at the Villa Cordova Apartments on Eastern Avenue near Sahara Avenue.

Authorities named her Jane "Cordova" Doe while they conducted a nationwide search for her killers.

Within weeks, authorities discovered her true identity, Crystal Figueroa. They arrested the child's mother and her boyfriend. The two received life sentences for their roles in Crystal's death.

Nevada has a Safe Haven law intended to prevent child dumping by ill-prepared parents.

The law allows parents to leave babies up to 30 days old at emergency response entities, such as fire stations, police departments or hospitals.

Scott Allison, a spokesman for the Clark County Fire Department, said his agency has never received a child in that manner. But, he said, the law is there to avoid instances of child abandonment.

"They can literally drop off a child and walk away, no questions asked," Allison said. "We'd much rather it happen this way."

Roberts said some luck may be needed to identify the Excalibur baby.

"At this point, we're at the mercy of a good Samaritan, a family member or the girl herself," Roberts said.

Anyone with any information on the identity of the baby is urged to call the Las Vegas police Homicide Section at 828-3521, or Crime Stoppers at 385-5555.

Contact reporter Antonio Planas at aplanas@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4638.