Nebraska mom, 27, booked for abandoning newborn on sidewalk in 15-degree weather
OMAHA, NEBRASKA: A 27-year-old woman reportedly abandoned the baby she gave birth to on the sidewalk in freezing temperatures in Nebraska. Trinity Shakespeare was arrested on Tuesday, February 15, for abandoning a newborn baby on early Sunday, February 13. Someone called 911 on Sunday morning about the 27-year-old having a “maternity problem”.
According to Scott Fitzpatrick, Omaha Fire Battalion Chief, Trinity who was found at her home asked the medics to leave her alone and refused to take medical care. The medics told that they could not make out whether or not she was pregnant owing to Trinity’s baggy clothes but had an idea based on the nature of the emergency call. Deputy Douglas County Attorney Alexander Kelly wrote in the petition that Trinity had admitted to drug use, uses alcohol and “has refused drug rehabilitation services offered by hospital staff.”
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After nearly forty-five minutes later another emergency call came in about the birth of the baby on the sidewalk. Passers-by called 911 and covered the baby from the freezing weather, Omaha World-Herald reported. A bystander told the Herald that Trinity left the scene before could medics arrive and the baby had been left in 15-degrees weather for over five minutes. Latrell Crane revealed how she came upon the poor baby: "I come over and the baby is on the sidewalk. Just in the fetal position, not breathing. Her umbilical cord still attached. And then... it's just my instinct because I have two kids [of] my own, right? I grabbed [the] umbilical cord and wrapped [it] around my hand." The mother was found nearby, behind a house. The police later located Trinity who was admitted for medical care before being booked in jail on child abuse charges on February 15.
Don Kleine, Douglas County Attorney said that the juvenile court prosecutors are moving the newborn baby into a ward of the state due to how it was abandoned in the cold. Trinity had earlier lost custody of her two children aged 1 and 2, after leaving them with a man back in August 2018. Apparently, the man claimed to have known Trinity for over five years but didn’t see much of her during the last two years. He told that Trinity was intoxicated when she dropped off her two kids saying “Here you go”. The man also shared that he couldn’t take care of the children then as he was an alcoholic back then.
At the time, Trinity was sentenced to 200 days in prison in 2018 and court prosecutors pushed to terminate her rights owing to alcohol use and abandonment and the kids' father’s rights were also terminated due to safety concerns like domestic violence. The kids are currently living with a third-party guardian after Trinity’s father was also denied custody of her two children.
In this current case too, prosecutors say the Omaha woman told a friend that she used methamphetamine and marijuana while pregnant. Trinity was homeless when she gave birth and has been homeless for about four years, her older sister revealed. Omaha Herald reports that Trinity told her sister she thought she was just having cramps which is why she declined to be taken to the hospital in an ambulance. She tried to “walk it out,” the sister said, but then experienced a severe cramp and delivered the baby soon afterward.