Posted on 01/30/2003 7:29:00 AM PST by Cagey
Kenosha - A high school senior accused of dumping his newborn son in a portable toilet apologized for trying to kill the baby but said he threw the infant away because he didn't want the child, a detective testified Wednesday.
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Gabriel Estrada, 18, was bound over for trial following a preliminary hearing Wednesday. Charged with attempted first-degree intentional homicide, Estrada remains in custody in lieu of $500,000 bail.
In a written statement he gave to Kenosha County Sheriff's Detective Scott Stanek, Estrada said he thought the baby would be found in two or three days, and it would be dead by then.
"I'm sorry for what I did, but I had no choice because I didn't want the baby," Stanek read from Estrada's statement.
The infant boy, dubbed Baby O in court records, is in foster care. Kenosha County District Attorney Robert Jambois said Wednesday he thought the child had been released from Children's Hospital of Wisconsin, which is not releasing information about the baby.
According to the criminal complaint, just hours after the baby was born on Jan. 13, Estrada argued with the child's 17-year-old mother over what to do with the baby, then grabbed the infant and drove around for a while before deciding to leave the baby for dead in the toilet at West Side Park in Twin Lakes.
A short while later, a father and his son who had been in the park heard noises from the restroom and summoned police. Officers found the baby in a tote bag at the bottom of the pit.
The next day, authorities received an anonymous call about a Wilmot High School senior who had been pregnant and had missed school the day before. On Jan. 14, she was no longer pregnant.
Stanek said the girl at first denied she was pregnant but later told detectives her boyfriend was Estrada. Estrada also initially denied that the girl was pregnant.
In interviews at Wilmot High School, however, the girl eventually admitted the baby abandoned in the toilet was hers and that she had asked Estrada to take the baby to a church, Stanek said.
Then Estrada confessed to officials that he argued with the girl over what to do with the baby before taking him and driving to the park, Stanek said.
"He said, 'Since you know what happened already, there's no sense in hiding it,' " Stanek testified.
Estrada didn't ask about the welfare of the baby, but Stanek told him the child was alive. Shortly after giving the statement, Estrada was arrested at the school.
Twin Lakes Police Officer Randall Prudik found the baby inside a blue canvas bag that was lying on its side inside the toilet in 21/2 inches of blue disinfectant fluid. Shining his flashlight into the toilet, "it was at that time I heard a muffled cry," Prudik testified.
When he pulled out the bag, a yellow towel soaked with disinfectant - which had turned the towel green - fell out and he saw the baby's right leg, Prudik said.
Prudik said the outside temperature was between 15 and 20 degrees when he found the infant. The boy was placed in a blanket and taken to a hospital. Last week, Jambois said the baby apparently had suffered no long-term effects from the ordeal.
Arraignment for Estrada, who sat quietly next to his attorney and didn't speak during Wednesday's preliminary hearing, is scheduled for Feb. 12.
That's fine, but for him to assimilate the information in that message you must have his attention first. A swift kick to the rear would be about right.
And then I thought about what I had thought -- a miracle that the baby had survived.
God had shown a truly remarkable act of His Grace in saving that baby.
But that Grace was also, I think, an act of Grace for the benefit of everyone else in this sad, sordid story.
Just as God used the selling of Joseph into slavery by his brothers (something the brothers intended for evil), God can use this evil action for his own good.
I'll remember this story the next time anyone asks me how I know there is a God.
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