Police Accuse 2 Women With Abandoning Newborn Girl

Two Pico Rivera women were charged with attempted murder Thursday in connection with a newborn girl who was found inside a plastic bag near a trash container a day earlier, authorities said.

Erika Solis, 23, was arrested at 8 a.m. after walking into the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department’s Pico Rivera Station and saying she was the mother of the baby found in the 9200 block of Whittier Boulevard Wednesday morning, Deputy. Ron Bottomley said.

“After questioning Solis,” he said, “detectives arrested her and booked her without bail on charges of attempted murder, child endangerment and child abandonment.”

Detectives said Solis had made some sort of arrangement with a second person, Darlene Morales, 34, and “based on that information Morales was arrested and booked without bail on the same charges,” he said.

The newborn, who apparently had been left shortly before being found, remained hospitalized in good condition at Beverly Hospital in Montebello, he said.

Under a new law, the parents could have taken the child to an emergency room and they would not have been prosecuted.

“The women are facing a maximum sentence of life in prison,” Lt. Al Grotefend said.

Morales was initially questioned Wednesday night by detectives who were led to her apartment by scent dogs that followed the baby’s trail nearly a mile, Grotefend said.

On Thursday, “Solis said that she had left the child with Morales and didn’t know she was going to put her in a trash bag and try to get rid of her,” Grotefend said. “Darlene wasn’t making too many statements, but she did deny a lot of things.”