A Louisiana woman who was given the gift of a child on Christmas Eve literally tried to get rid of her baby by throwing it in a Walmart bathroom trash can.
New Falls resident Kyandrea Thomas, 34, was arrested Monday for the dastardly act, as noted by Inside Edition , and charged with attempted second degree murder.
According to the tabloid news program, Thomas was soliciting patrons outside of the Walmart for tips on behalf of the Salvation Army on Saturday, December 24, when she suddenly went into labor. Rather than request medical assistance, the accused instead made her way to a bathroom stall inside of the department mega-store and gave birth to a healthy baby girl, before placing the her inside of a plastic bag and tossing her into a garbage can.
https://twitter.com/therealeric916/status/813476895861964801
By happenstance, another Walmart employee who was sent to clean out the bathroom discovered the child inside of the bin and called for help. Initially unresponsive, the newborn was able to be properly resuscitated at nearby Point Coupee General Hospital before being transferred to Our Lady of the Lake Hospital in Baton Rouge. The child, who was temporarily named Olivia by medical staff, is now said to be in stable condition.
“It’s a very emotional situation, to say the least,” Pointe Coupee Sheriff Bud Torres expressed of the matter. “We don’t know all the facts or what the motivation was for it, but it was a senseless act on her part.”
Chief Deputy Joe Gannon, a staff member of the Pointe Coupee Parish Coroner’s Office, relayed to FOX Carolina that Thomas’ baby was approximately 4- to 6-hours-old when the Walmart employee found her in the bathroom.
Incidentally, this was not the first time that Thomas has been accused of causing harm to a child. As noted by CBS affiliate WAFB-9, the body of 3-year-old Damiyn McElveen was found inside of a van belonging to Wanda’s Kids World, a day care center that once employed Thomas, in 2009.
As stated by court documents, Thomas, along with two other former day care workers, somehow forgot to ensure that McElveen had exited the vehicle on July 1 of that year after picking her up at home earlier that day. As such, the toddler was left to overheat inside of the van for six hours, with temperatures outside reaching upwards to 90 degrees during the afternoon. Thomas was subsequently sentenced to five years probation and 10,000 hours of community service.
Louisiana is one of several states that has currently has a “Safe-Haven” statute in play. Under that law, which is occasionally referred to as the “Baby Moses law” (in reference to the plight of the biblical character), overwhelmed parents can drop off unharmed newborns or infants at state-designated hospitals or firehouses. As Kyandrea Thomas’ child was just born, the mother was fully eligible for the aforementioned regulation.
Following her booking at the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison on Monday, Thomas was transferred to the Point Coupee Parish Jail, where she currently awaits sentencing. No word on the child’s father has been publicly made.
Just last month, as reported by the Inquisitr , a Nigerian woman also gave birth inside of a public bathroom and discarded the fetus to make a connecting flight inside of an Austrian airport.
Nigerian Mother ‘Dumps Baby At Vienna Airport So That She Didn’t Miss Her Flight https://t.co/Fu0c6Gw5DN
— Information Nigeria (@infonaija) November 15, 2016
Just as with Kyandrea Thomas, janitorial employees for Vienna’s Schwechat International Airport found the newborn, who, like Thomas’ baby, was also placed inside of a plastic bag and thrown into one of the bathroom’s trash bins. The unnamed child, whose gender was not made public, subsequently died as a result of complications of a prolonged lack of oxygen. The mother, who was a college student on her way to America, was taken to a nearby hospital to be treated before being arrested.
[Featured Image by the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office]