Baby Carlos Guzman's mother abandoned him in a dumpster, but today he has found a loving family that wants to make him its own.
On February 25, Guzman was found in the Windmill Lakes apartment complex, wrapped in a trash bag. The little child is named for a maintenance worker, Carlos Michel, who heard noises coming from the receptacle and thought it might be a cat.
Instead, he found an infant boy fighting for his life.
Soon, authorities located his mother, a 16-year-old high school student, who admitted abandoning the newborn.
After he was released from the hospital, a foster family took baby Carlos into its care.
Now, a case worker has testified in court that Baby Carlos is “in a great place…he couldn't be in a better place.”
The family wants to adopt, and the state wholeheartedly agrees, according to testimony offered last Thursday in local court, KPRC-TV reported.
Officials say Carlos suffered no ill health effects, responds to verbal cues, and is bonding with his soon-to-be adoptive family.
His birth parents' future will not be as rosy.
Because the mother is a minor, she could receive probation. Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson said prosecutors “will not be seeking probation for this type of case…we will be seeking incarceration.” They believe prison time is appropriate “if you abandon a baby in this manner, with no intent to return for the baby, no regard for the safety of this baby.”
The father is an illegal immigrant from Guatemala. Investigators say the 22-year-old has refused to cooperate, or follow through with taking a promised DNA test. They have reported him to the sex crimes division for his relationship with an underage girl and are moving to strip him of parental rights.
The rescue of baby Carlos is all the more dramatic, since he was found nearly one year to the day after officials in Houston reported that a 29-year-old woman self-aborted and discarded her baby's lifeless body in her trash can.