Inset: Heather Perez Miranda (Linn County Correctional Center). Background: The area in Hiawatha where Miranda Perez allegedly abandoned two young kids (Google Maps).
A 37-year-old mother from Iowa is accused of framing her husband for shooting her and later abandoning her two young children, one of whom has special medical needs, on the side of a “busy” street, telling them that “nobody loved them.”
Heather Ann Perez Miranda was arrested in Linn County and is currently facing two counts of neglect or abandonment of a dependent, two counts of child endangerment, one count of domestic abuse assault, and one count of false reporting of an indictable offense, court records reviewed by Law&Crime show.
The two children Perez Miranda allegedly abandoned in Hiawatha, which is about 120 miles east of Des Moines, were 6 and 8 years old, according to a report from the Kansas City Star. The older child reportedly has a “congenital deformity to her mouth/jaw area” and had undergone a tracheostomy that left her unable to care for herself.
While the victims were reportedly not Perez Miranda’s biological children, she does share four other children with the victims’ father, who is also the man she is accused of trying to frame. Those four children were reportedly in the car with Perez Miranda when she allegedly abandoned the two victims.
According to a copy of the criminal complaint obtained by Des Moines CBS affiliate KCCI, officers with the Hiawatha Police Department on June 30, 2024, responded to a call regarding two young children who were unattended on the roadside around the 4000 bock of Tower Terrace Road.
Upon arriving at the scene, first responders located the children, who told police that Perez Miranda had left them there and driven away.
“The children reported that their mother, the defendant, left them along the side of the road after telling them to get out of the truck she was driving and that nobody loved them,” the complaint reportedly states. “The children were left on Tower Terrace Road, a busy city street, and also near I-380, by themselves, exposing them to hazard or danger.”
The place where the children were abandoned is reportedly about eight miles from their home.
In an interview with the children’s father, he reportedly said that he and Perez Miranda fought earlier in the day and she punched him in the face, at which point he left their home and went to a hotel, leaving Perez Miranda with the four kids they share and the two victims.
Perez Miranda reportedly told police she dropped off the kids with her partner at a local camping site. However, surveillance footage obtained by police and witness statements allegedly contradicted her story. She was arrested and charged with child endangerment and neglect in September 2024.
Before her arrest, Perez Miranda allegedly lied to police, telling officers that the father of her children shot her, Cedar Rapids, Iowa ABC affiliate KCRG reported.
According to the report, Perez Miranda on Aug. 28, 2024, told deputies with the Linn County Sheriff’s Office that she was in a camper at Morgan Creek Park when her husband shot her in the midsection.
While Perez Miranda had suffered a gunshot wound, investigators reportedly determined that the details of her story did not align with the trajectory of the bullet, which passed through the lower left side of her abdomen and out of the camper.
Additionally, deputies said they were able to determine that at the time Perez Miranda was shot, her husband was with their children at a different location with surveillance footage confirming his whereabouts. She was arrested and charged with false reporting last month, records show.
The sheriff’s office did not tell KCRG who they believe shot Perez Miranda, but told the station that the agency was not looking for other suspects.
