Mother who dumped newborn baby in Walmart toilets faces murder charge

A baby girl found dumped in a rubbish bin in a supermarket toilet hours after her mother gave birth to her has somehow survived, police have said.

The infant was roughly four hours old when an employee of Walmart in New Roads, Louisiana found her, Lieutenant Shael Stringer of the New Roads Police Department told the Washington Post.

The lavatory attendant had been cleaning the toilets when it was noticed the bin was heavier than normal. When the cleaner peered inside, the baby was found discoloured and not breathing.

She was resuscitated at the scene and taken to hospital less than a mile away, Stringer said.

"Had it been just a little bit longer, the possibility of resuscitation probably wouldn't have happened," he added.

It transpired that another Walmart employee spotted the baby's mother, Kyandrea Thomas, in the bathroom hours earlier.

The employee is said to have seen Thomas bleeding heavily in the bathroom, however Thomas claimed she was having trouble with her menstrual cycle.

After dumping the baby in the rubbish bin, she was later found in another hospital after she had complications with the pregnancy.

Thomas, 34, of Baker, was arrested on 24 December and now faces a second-degree murder charge. According to New Roads Police, Thomas gave a full confession of what she had done.

Court records also revealed the mother was already a convicted felon for a negligent homicide in 2011.

She was a children's worker at the now defunct Wanda's Kids World and was found responsible for the death of a three-year-old girl who died in 2009 after she was left in a van for more than six hours in scorching heat.

Thomas was put on probation for five years, fined $5,000 (£3,400) and ordered to serve 10,000 hours of community service, according to Baton Rouge's The Advocate.