Woman who found hours-old baby in bag says she ‘thought it was kittens’

SEYMOUR, Ind. (WAVE) - A woman whose daily routine includes walking her dog said she “thought it was kittens” in a plastic bag nestled alone a fence line in Seymour on Tuesday.

It turned out to a newborn baby.

“I thought a cat was going to pop its head up out of the hole and when it moved, I jumped because I was scared,” Angela Butler told WAVE 3 News on Wednesday. “And I was like, ‘What is in there?’ And I got to looking more, and it was a baby’s foot trying to press against the plastic bag. And I said, ‘Oh my God that is a baby.’”

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Butler found the baby Latino girl, just hours old, along the fence line in the 600 block of South Jackson Park Drive about 20 feet from the roadway.

“I went and got the phone, called the cops, picked the baby up and the baby quit crying,” Butler said. “And (I) untied the Walmart bag because it was in a double knot in a Walmart bag and a blanket, just wrapped up in a blanket. No clothes on. The blanket was on its face, so I took it off its face and untied it until the cops arrived and then they took the baby.”

After the baby was rushed to the hospital for an examination, doctors determined she was healthy.

Seymour Police Det. Sgt. C.J. Foster said the location where the baby was found was not easily visible from the roadway.

“The baby is lucky that I got there because nobody goes over there,” Butler said. “No body walks through there. Especially where the baby was. Back in the corner.”

Foster said a possible language barrier may be why the mother might not have known about the Safe Haven Baby Box at Seymour Fire Station 3, just a few minutes down the road from where the baby was found.

“We want to make sure the mother’s OK as well, and obviously see what the situation is with the mother,” Foster said.

“(I’ll) make sure I look at every plastic bag now,” Butler said.

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