Girl, 17, gives birth in Walmart bathroom before her father does the unthinkable
Officers in Kingsville have said they were called to the store just before 10.30pm on Monday, after receiving a call that a maintenance worker discovered a newborn child in a bathroom trash can while taking out the garbage, KRIS 6 reports.
Walmart employees tried to perform life saving measures on the infant and authorities rushed the child to the hospital right next door, where doctors pronounced her dead.
In the aftermath, officers reviewed the store's security camera footage and discovered that a 17-year-old girl had entered the bathroom, where she remained for about 40 minutes, before leaving the store and getting into a car in the parking lot.
It took another half hour for the maintenance worker to discover the newborn.
Police were ultimately able to track down the teenager's car and performed a traffic stop, before taking the girl to the hospital for treatment.
They now plan to question her about the abandonment after she is released.
But in the meantime, authorities have arrested her father, 45-year-old Jerry Lee Martinez, who is now facing charges of abandoning or endangering a child with criminal negligence.
He is also charged with tampering with a witness and tampering with physical evidence, according to PEOPLE.
Martinez was arrested at the scene after the infant was discarded in the bathroom. His exact role in 'tampering with the evidence' remains unclear.
DailyMail.com has reached out to the Kingsville Police Department for more details.
The father was being held at the Kleberg County Jail without bond, Law & Crime reports.
'The avenue taken last night wasn't the correct one, wasn't a safe one for the mother or the child,' Celinda Tatum, a Kingsville Police Department accident investigator told KRIS 6.
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