Police said an autopsy found the baby was born alive and inhaled sanitation fluid after being placed in the holding tank of a portable toilet.

LAS CRUCES, N.M. — A Las Cruces woman has been charged with intentional child abuse resulting in death after police said she gave birth in a portable toilet and left her newborn daughter in the holding tank, where the baby died.

The charge against 38-year-old Sonia Cristal Jimenez followed a Feb. 7 investigation that began at a hospital and quickly shifted to Burn Lake, where officers recovered the child’s body from a portable toilet. The case matters because police say the medical evidence showed the infant was born alive, turning what could have been treated as a hidden birth investigation into a first-degree felony prosecution centered on the child’s death. Jimenez was arrested days later and jailed without bond.

Police said the case started at about 10:30 p.m. on Feb. 7 when staff at Memorial Medical Center alerted authorities that Jimenez had arrived appearing to have just given birth, but no baby was with her. Investigators then spoke with her boyfriend, who had driven her to the hospital. According to police, he told them the pair had been at Burn Lake earlier and that Jimenez had used a portable toilet there. Officers went to the area off Burn Lake Road and searched the portable restroom. They found the newborn girl in the holding tank. Las Cruces firefighters recovered the baby, who was dead. Investigators later said they believe Jimenez gave birth to a live child inside the portable toilet, cut the umbilical cord and placed the infant into the tank rather than seeking help or taking the baby to the hospital with her.

The autopsy findings gave prosecutors their strongest public evidence. Police said the New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator determined the baby was alive at birth. Authorities also said the blue sanitation chemical commonly used in portable toilets was found in the infant’s trachea, lungs and stomach. Investigators interpreted that to mean the child inhaled and swallowed the liquid while alive. In public statements, police said that evidence supported their conclusion that the baby drowned after being placed in the holding tank. Those findings turned the case from one driven mainly by circumstance into one anchored by forensic evidence. They also explain why the allegation is not framed as concealment or abuse after death, but as intentional child abuse resulting in death. No charges are expected against the boyfriend, and police have said they do not believe he knew Jimenez had given birth before they reached the hospital.

The location helped make the case especially unsettling. Burn Lake is not a private room or a hidden structure. It is an outdoor area where a portable toilet serves visitors who expect a basic public facility, not the site of an infant death investigation. That contrast became part of the case’s public impact, as did the stark details police released about the autopsy. Las Cruces Police Chief Jeremy Story said the investigation was among the most heartbreaking and disturbing of his career. Even with the public anger such a case can draw, the court process will still have to answer the same core questions that govern any felony prosecution. Prosecutors must show not only that Jimenez gave birth there, but that she knowingly and intentionally placed the baby in a life-threatening situation that caused her death. Based on the public statements so far, investigators believe the medical findings support that theory strongly.

The procedural path is clear, though some case details remain private. Jimenez was arrested on Feb. 11 after police obtained a warrant and was booked into the Doña Ana County Detention Center. Authorities said she was initially being held without bond. The available reports do not describe a public defense statement or a detailed explanation from Jimenez beyond the arrest allegations. They also do not say whether prosecutors plan to pursue additional counts. The next court stages are expected to focus on probable cause, formal charging papers and the handling of the autopsy evidence, which is likely to be central to every major hearing. Because the baby cannot speak and there were no known witnesses inside the portable toilet, the case will depend heavily on physical evidence, timing, hospital observations and statements gathered by investigators after Jimenez arrived for treatment.

The emotional weight of the case is hard to separate from the legal one. Public officials have spoken about the infant almost entirely through the medical findings and the charge itself, and that gives the story a stark, clinical tone. But the underlying facts remain those of a child who, police say, was born alive and died within minutes in a setting designed for waste disposal. That is why the case has drawn such intense attention and why the police chief’s public comments were so blunt. Still, the courtroom will decide the legal outcome, not the headlines. For now, the public record presents a severe allegation backed by a specific autopsy result and a tight timeline from Burn Lake to the hospital.

Jimenez remains jailed as the case moves forward in Doña Ana County. The next milestone is her appearance in court on the child-abuse-resulting-in-death charge and the state’s fuller presentation of its forensic evidence.

Author note: Last updated March 15, 2026.