Mystery of abandoned babies stuns California town

OROSI, Calif. – The first newborn was discovered swaddled in a blanket on an outdoor bench, an umbilical cord still hanging from his tiny body. Then, at neat 11-month intervals, two more abandoned babies were found in parked pickup trucks in the same neighborhood.

This week, DNA tests established all three babies were almost certainly born to the same mother.

Now, in a heartbreaking mystery that has transfixed this central California farm community of 7,300, investigators are trying to find the mother and figure out what drove her to such desperate lengths.

“How can the relatives not see this girl pregnant, and then see that she’s not pregnant anymore and not ask, ‘Where’s the baby?’ Somebody must know something,” said Hortencia Espino, 81.

All three newborns were found within a two-block radius. The first two – a boy and a girl – survived and are now wards of the state.

The third baby was found dead of exposure on the cold night of Dec. 3. She was enveloped in a sweatshirt in the bed of a pickup parked near the high school, some 60 miles southeast of Fresno. The coroner concluded she was alive for less than a day.

On Wednesday, a Catholic church held a baptism and funeral Mass in Spanish and English for the baby girl, who was called “Angelita DeOrosi,” or Orosi’s little angel.

Marely Pena, who found the infant in her father’s truck, cried behind dark glasses.

“I ask myself every day, ‘What if she had been alive?’ We could have saved her,” said Pena, 25.

Authorities interviewed local women they thought might be involved, but DNA testing eliminated them as the babies’ mother.

After exhausting all leads, officials are asking the community for help finding the parents and are offering a $5,000 reward. Police said the mother could face criminal charges.