Newborn boy abandoned in handbag survives chilly Texas night

Oct. 30, 2012, 2:40 PM EDT

CORSICANA, Texas — A newborn boy is stable and "doing fine" after being stuffed in a handbag and abandoned Sunday evening near a North Texas home as temperatures dipped into the 40s, authorities say.

Corsicana police have appealed for the public's help in identifying the infant and locating his mother.The baby was wrapped in a towel that was in a pillowcase inside a plastic bag inside a handbag, police said.

The bag was left outside the house of Mihoko Brown and her husband. They live on the corner of a dead-end street off busy State Highway 22. Their cat, Stinky, started sniffing around the door, alerting the couple to the package, police said.

"I put my ear to the door and heard something, and I barely opened the door and saw the bag,” Phillip Brown told the Corsicana Daily Sun. “I said, ‘Somebody’s left us a puppy in this bag.’ Then it started crying and I said, ‘This is a baby.’”

"I was glad he had the energy to cry loud enough for me to hear," Mihoko Brown said, according to an NBCDFW.com report. "I was trying to make him quit crying. I just went, kind of swinging and holding him and singing a little bit."

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Police Chief Randy Bratton said the baby, with umbilical cord still attached, was taken to a hospital.

“He’s stable and appears he’s going to be fine,” Bratton told the Corsicana Daily Sun. "We’re very fortunate because it got pretty cold last night. If the baby hadn’t been found quickly there’s a good chance the baby might not have made it. But the baby’s fine."

Forecasters say temperatures were in the upper 40s around the time the baby was found in Corsicana, about 50 miles southeast of Dallas.

Police say the baby's mother may not have known that Texas has a Baby Moses law, which gives legal immunity to a mother who leaves an infant at any hospital, fire station or police station, the Daily Sun reported.

Police have looked for the mother at area hospitals, and they also checked with local schools to see if she was a student.

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When the baby is discharged from Navarro Regional Hospital, he will be placed in the custody of Child Protective Services, Bratton said.

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