Florida sheriff names abandoned newborn 'Angel Grace' after baby found alive in woods
"She's as beautiful as an angel. It's by the grace of God she is not dead," Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}A Florida sheriff named a newborn baby "Angel Grace" after she was discovered abandoned in the woods earlier this week, as investigators work to identify the person who left her.
"She's as beautiful as an angel. It's by the grace of God she is not dead," Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd told reporters. As of Wednesday morning, investigators were still working to determine who abandoned the baby.
Deputies from the Polk County Sheriff’s Office received a call shortly after 1:45 a.m. Saturday about what sounded like "a baby crying outside" in a wooded area near the Regal Loop Mobile Home Park on Bailey Road in Mulberry, Judd said.
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The commotion started late Friday into early Saturday, Judd said, when a neighbor heard what she thought was the sound of "some cats screaming and fighting."
The screaming subsided for roughly an hour and a half, until the woman "heard screaming and crying again."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"She went outside and said, ‘Well, that's a baby.’ So, she got her husband and the two of them searched around and out in the woods," Judd went on. "They found this infant, this beautiful baby girl."
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Deputies arrived to find the baby girl on a hill near the mobile home park, wrapped in "some old blankets" and still attached to the umbilical cord and placenta. Judd named her Angel Grace Lnu, the latter part meaning "last name unknown."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Authorities estimated the girl had been born roughly an hour before she was found, and weighed about six-and-a-half pounds.
"Fully developed, very healthy. Now has some insect bites for being in the woods at least an hour and a half," he said. "We raced this baby to the hospital, and she is in exceptionally good condition. She is a beautiful child."
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Judd said the baby appears to be of Hispanic descent. Investigators canvassed the neighborhood for information about the baby’s possible mother, but have so far had no success. The sheriff's department also deployed a K-9 unit, a bloodhound, a drone and an aviation unit in its search for answers.
"Usually it’s a younger person who does not want the child or has somehow hidden the presence of the child from their parents," he said. "And now, they’ve abandoned this child in the woods all alone."
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}When asked if he felt that the child was "left there to die," Judd responded: "Absolutely."
Polk County, Florida Sheriff's Office (Polk County Sheriff's Office)
"This child was left, and it was in the low 50s. It was very cool that evening," he said of the temperature. "But certainly, we saved this person from a homicide charge because had that child laid out there and died, then we would be talking about a murder investigation and now we're not."
Florida has a Safe Haven Law that allows parents to leave their newborn babies who are under one-week-old at designated facilities without the threat of prosecution.
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The Polk County Sheriff’s Office is asking anyone with information related to the investigation to call 863-298-6200.
Just weeks earlier, a newborn baby was found abandoned in a dumpster in Tennessee, a state that has also enacted Safe Haven laws.