A mother taking her premature baby home from the hospital smothered the newborn on the bus with his blanket and put his body in the trash, authorities said Tuesday.
Lucila Rojas, 25, was charged with second-degree murder and other offenses Tuesday in the death of her 2-week-old son, Anthony. She told authorities that he was conceived as a result of a rape in Mexico and that now “the baby will sleep forever.”
Police searched two landfills Tuesday in Pennsylvania where New York City’s garbage is routinely taken for remains of the boy.
Investigators said the Bronx woman used a blue blanket to suffocate the 2-week-old boy on New Year’s Eve day while on a bus to a relative’s home. After she got off the bus, she put the naked body in a plastic bag and put it in a trash can on the street, police said.
Police have recovered the infant’s blue blanket in a baby carrier.
On Monday, Rojas called police, saying that a man in black had abducted the baby from her at gunpoint. But the details of her story kept changing and eventually she confessed, authorities said.
Queens District Attorney Richard Brown called the crime “both heartless and heartbreaking.”
Rojas, who also has a 3-year-old daughter who lives with her father, was being held without bail. Rojas could get up to 25 years to life in prison if convicted.
Her attorney did not return a telephone call seeking comment after the evening arraignment.
