Woman Who Left Baby Won’t Be Charged

The mother who left her newborn outside a state office building last month won’t be charged with a crime because she waited to make sure the infant was picked up by someone, prosecutors said.

Thurston County prosecutors decided Friday that there was not enough evidence to charge Emily Malouf, 21, with child abandonment, and Olympia city prosecutors said she won’t be charged with reckless endangerment.

“There has to be a recklessness involved,” said Mark Erickson, Olympia’s city attorney.

“Apparently, the woman involved waited where she could see the baby to make sure someone would pick it up.”

The baby girl’s temperature was about 4 degrees below normal and her umbilical cord had been cut, but she appeared to be fine when she was found in a backpack on a bench Jan. 8.