Police: Baby found in dumpster ‘recovering from burn injuries’
NEW HAVEN — The eight-month-old girl found burned but alive in a dumpster earlier this week remained hospitalized Wednesday, New Haven police said.
Capt. Anthony Duff said the baby girl was recovering from her injuries at Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital. She is receiving care for burns to both hands, he said previously.
The girl was found in a dumpster outside the Presidential Gardens apartment complex on Dixwell Avenue Monday afternoon.
Duff said officers responded to the complex around 2 p.m. after maintenance workers reported finding the child.
Perry Dennis, the man who heard the baby in the dumpster, told Hearst he had been throwing away his trash when he heard a noise. He initially thought it was a cat; it turned out to be the baby crying.
Andiana Velez, 24, of Hamden, allegedly abandoned the girl there, according to New Haven police. She was arraigned Tuesday on charges of risk of injury to a child, seconddegree assault and first
degree reckless endangerment.
In addition, Velez is charged with assaulting the girl’s mother earlier in the day, Duff said previously.
“It is believed Velez was the child’s babysitter,” Duff has said. “New Haven po
lice and the state Department of Children and Families (DCF) are continuing to investigate the cause of the child’s injuries. Investigators have not yet determined who is responsible for the infant’s burn injuries.”
Velez is being held in lieu of $500,000 bail. Accordng to state judicial records, she is scheduled to appear in Superior Court in New Haven Oct. 30.