The police interview was already falling apart before Alexis Avila said the words that made the room go quiet. She was just eighteen, sitting in the Hobbs station, and everything about her story sounded rehearsed until it didn’t. She claimed she hadn’t known she was pregnant until the day before. She claimed she went to the bathroom, and the baby just came out.
She claimed panic. She claimed fear of her mother. And then, almost as an afterthought, she asked if she could still be the boy’s mom. “I just turned 18,” she kept repeating.
“Not like I’ve been 18 forever. ”
But the surveillance footage had already told a different version of that afternoon. A white car pulling behind a shopping center. A black trash bag tossed into a green dumpster.
A tiny, bloodied newborn boy left in 36-degree weather for nearly six hours. —
Alexis was born in 2004 to Martha and Domingo Avila. Her father described her childhood as loving and tight-knit. In 2021, she was seventeen, living with her family in Hobbs, New Mexico, dating sixteen-year-old Steven Atoga.
On June 12, 2021, the couple attended a quinceañera at Club La Sierra. What should have been a celebration turned violent when Steven allegedly punched Alexis. Her cousin jumped in. A friend broke a finger and ended up in the hospital.
Alexis went home and called 911, reporting the assault. Her mother called too, demanding police. Officers responded and took statements, but the Hobbs Police Department decided not to file charges. Alexis and Steven stayed together for another two months.
They split for good in August 2021. By then, Alexis was already pregnant. She never told anyone—not her mother, not Steven, who she claimed she’d told she had a miscarriage back in July. She told investigators she only learned she was pregnant on January 6, 2022, when she went to a doctor for stomach pain.
She was terrified of her mother’s reaction. “I thought she was going to hate me,” Alexis later said. The very next day, January 7, 2022, she went into labor at home. Alone, in her bathroom, she gave birth to a boy with no medical help.
She wrapped him in a bloodstained towel, put him inside two trash bags, carried him to her car, and drove behind a local shopping center. At around two in the afternoon, surveillance cameras captured her stepping out of the car and tossing the bag into a dumpster. The baby stayed there for six hours. At around 7:45 p.
m. , three people—Michael Green, Hector Joso, and April Nuttall—were rummaging through the dumpster for valuables. They heard what they thought was a whining animal. They tore open the bag and found a newborn, barely breathing, smeared with blood, his umbilical cord still attached.
April cradled him in her arms. Michael called 911. “Yes, we just found a baby in the trash behind the town street. ”
Paramedics raced to the scene.
The baby’s body temperature was so low they couldn’t get a reading. He was rushed to Covenant Health Hobbs Hospital, then airlifted to a larger facility in Lubbock, Texas, about a hundred miles away. By the next day, he was in stable condition. Investigators pulled the surveillance footage, traced the car, and identified Alexis.
Early the following morning, officers went to her family’s home. She agreed to accompany them to the station. During the interview, she admitted everything. She said she was overwhelmed.
She said she decided to get rid of him. She referred to the baby as “it. ”
When pressed on whether she understood that leaving a newborn in a trash bin could kill him, she fell silent. Alexis was charged with attempted first-degree murder and child abuse resulting in great bodily harm.
Despite the severity, a judge allowed her to remain free on an unsecured bond, under strict house arrest. She could not contact her son or any witnesses. She could not leave the county. Her mother told reporters that everyone makes mistakes, insisting Alexis had truly not understood she was pregnant.
But the owner of the store whose camera caught the incident was furious. He questioned how any mother could defend a daughter who had thrown her own newborn into a dumpster. He doubted the family’s ignorance, pointing out that if Alexis had been to a doctor for stomach pain, a pregnancy test would surely have been done. The baby boy, meanwhile, recovered.
He was placed in the custody of his paternal grandparents, who were eager to raise him. By the one-year anniversary, he was described as healthy and happy. Alexis’s case moved slowly through the courts through 2022 and into 2023. Her attorneys filed a motion to change the venue, arguing that everyone in Hobbs knew about the “dumpster baby case” and had likely seen the video.
Judge William G. W. Shoobridge denied the request, deciding careful juror screening would be enough. The trial began in April 2023 in Lovington, New Mexico.
The prosecution played the surveillance video. The three rescuers testified about finding the baby. Medical experts described his severe hypothermia, saying he would likely have died within an hour or two if not found. Search warrants uncovered bloodstained clothing and a towel consistent with childbirth in Alexis’s home and car.
The defense didn’t deny what Alexis had done. Instead, they argued that she suffered from undiagnosed bipolar disorder. A licensed clinical social worker, Jack Hancock, testified about Alexis’s persistent mental health issues. The defense argued that the stress and denial of pregnancy led to an act of desperation, not a calculated murder attempt.
They suggested she may have been in a dissociative state. Her lawyer stressed that she was barely eighteen, that she had no prior record, that she was a student with a bright future. Her mother’s statement was read: Alexis wouldn’t have done this if she had been in her right state of mind. On April 14, 2023, the jury found Alexis guilty on both counts.
She stood weeping as the verdict was read. —
The sentencing hearing took place on May 1, 2023. The courtroom was full—media, family, and Steven, the baby’s father. Steven spoke directly to Alexis.
He described his son as a beautiful, healthy little boy who would one day learn what his mother had done. “My healthy, my loving, and handsome baby boy,” he said. “He is never going to forget the things you did. But for that, I can say that my son will be somebody one day, no matter how much he has already been through.
”
Her father, Domingo, pleaded for mercy. He said he desperately hoped to be part of his grandson’s life one day. “If me or her mom ever even had a clue that she was pregnant, we would never be in this situation,” he said. “That is not who she is.
That is not how we raised her. ”
Alexis herself was given the chance to speak. She said she was sorry. She regretted that her son’s first hours were traumatic.
She said she had missed every first milestone and would miss many years of his childhood. She hoped that one day, when he was older, he might read about this and understand that she did love him. “I regret that I had to miss out on every first milestone the baby had and that I deprived him of motherly love,” she said. “I regret that his first hours of life were traumatic.
And I regret that he will always have this in the back of his head. ”
Then Judge Shoobridge delivered his sentence. He acknowledged her youth and mental health issues, but he emphasized the severity of her crime. He noted that if not for the grace of God and the three people who found the baby, they would be sentencing her for murder.
He pointed out that New Mexico had safe haven laws that would have allowed her to surrender the baby safely. She chose not to. “You’ve given yourself a life sentence of knowing what you did with your child,” he told her. “And you’ve also given your son that same life sentence.
”
He sentenced her to eighteen years, the maximum allowed, then suspended two years, leaving sixteen years behind bars followed by two years of supervised parole. He cited her age and mental health as factors in the reduction and recommended continued mental health treatment while incarcerated. Alexis was remanded to the New Mexico Department of Corrections. Her attorney noted she would be about thirty-four upon release.
—
But that wasn’t the end. Her legal team filed an appeal immediately. In the fall of 2023, her attorneys requested she be released from prison while the appeal was pending, arguing she was not a danger to the community. A district judge denied the motion in late September 2023.
Her lawyers took the request to the New Mexico Court of Appeals. On October 18, 2023, two appellate judges overturned the lower court’s decision and ordered Alexis released on bond under strict conditions—house arrest at her family’s home in Hobbs, an ankle monitor, no contact with her son or any witnesses, no alcohol, no weapons, and no leaving Lea County. The appeals court noted that her appeal raised a substantial question of law that could result in a reversal or a new trial. About eighteen months after she dumped her newborn in a trash bag, Alexis Avila walked out of prison.
As of July 2025, her appeal had not been resolved. In the aftermath of the case, New Mexico lawmakers expanded the Safe Haven program, installing baby boxes in every county where mothers in crisis could anonymously surrender an infant. Hobbs got one of its own. But the deeper issue remained.
Investigators noted that, like another teen mom with a nearly identical case, Alexis pointed to fear of her parents as the reason she did what she did. The question that lingered wasn’t just about a baby thrown away. It was about the fear that kept a young mother so terrified of her own family that she chose a dumpster over a helping hand.
