A Texas woman has been charged with abuse of a corpse after she apparently gave birth in a Bexar County fast food restaurant restroom and tried to dispose of the baby in a toilet.
A Whataburger manager told responding deputies that the woman had come into the restaurant on Thursday at about midnight and went to the restroom about two hours later, KENS reported. Once inside, she could be heard making sounds but refused help and wouldn’t come out. The manager ultimately called 911.
Deputies and firefighters arrived on the scene. The firefighters found a baby in the toilet, still wrapped in is amniotic sac. Efforts to revive the newborn were unsuccessful, and she was pronounced dead after she and the mother were taken to Metropolitan Methodist Hospital.
A doctor told detectives the baby appeared to be 28 to 30 weeks along in the pregnancy and that injuries to the girl’s head indicated she may have been forced into the toilet drain.
The medical examiner has not yet issued a cause of death.
Mallori Patrice Strait, 33, has been charged with abuse of a corpse and is being held on a $100,000 bail.
Texas has a safe haven law in which a newborn can be brought to a safe space and left with no questions asked.
