warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This story contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers discretion advised.
An 18-year-old new mother from New Mexico, has been charged with attempted murder after police say security camera video captured her throwing her newborn infant into a dumpster and driving off. The video also showed rescuers pulling the baby to safety hours late.
This is Martha and Domingo Avila refusing to let officers speak to their daughter.
What thay don’t know yet is that officers are already uncovering the secret she’s been hiding in plain sight.
And before the night is over ,that secret will force investigators to ask one qeuestion.
“What really happened here?”
On the evening of January 7th, 2022 at aproximately 7:40 p.m., three people were dumpster diving behind Rig outfitters in Hobbs,New Mexico.
As they moved between dumpsters, one of them notices a large unusual bag sitting inside, as they pulled the bag out , something felt off ,it was heavier than expected.
As they got closer to check what was inside,nothing could prepared them for what they were about to see, inside the bag was a newborn baby wrapped in a thin pink towel.
The woman immediately picked him up , moved him into their car and called 911.
Within minutes , multiplev officers from the Hobbs police department arrived at the scene and approached the women holding the child, trying to keep him warm.
Officers quickly secured the child and waited for EMS to arrive.
when paramedics took over, they immediately began working to stabilixe the the newborn, his skin had turned blue from the cold and he was struggling to breath.
A closer examination revealed dried blood on his body and that the umbilical cord was still attached, a clear indication that he had been born only a short time earlier.
But , how did the child end up there at all ? a quick look around the area revealed that no one else was present.
so,the officers turned to the only people who could explaine what they found,they began with April,the women who pulled the baby from the bag.
Since April hadn’t seen which bag the baby was in , the officers turned to michaler , the original caller.
Officers alsso spoke with Hector, the third person who had been there that night.
All three had arrived together after dark , and none of them had been in the area earlier that day.
His account match that of April and michael’s, their timelines lined up and there were no inconsistencies.so, all three were ruled out.
But officers were left with more questions than answers, with no clear direction .
They turned back to the dumpster where the child was located.
They searched through the trash bag and its contents,looking for anything that might explain who the baby was .
There were a few small spots of blood on the bag, but beyond that there was nothing .
For the moment ,the case washeading toward a dead end until one officer noticed something nearby that would give thame their first breakthrough.
When they reviewed the footage ,it showed a white Volkswagen Jetta , pulling up to the dumpsters at around 2:00 p.m.
That day , a young women stepped out from the driver’s seat opened the rear door and pulled out a black trash bag.
She walked straight to the dumpster and tossed it inside,seconds later, she got back in the car and drove away.
the camera had captured everything, including the license plate and when officers ran it , the vehicle was quickly linked back to Alexis Avila.
From there , it led them straight to a house on West McKenzie only a minutes away from the dumpsters.
However, the person who answered the door was not the women officers had seen earlier in the video.
They were Alexis’s parents and when they refused to let their daughter come out, officers filled them in on why they were there, hoping it would lead to a conversation with her.
But instead of a conversation , there was little response from the parents,they continued to refuse to let officers speak with their daughter .
if Martha and Domingo truly didn’t know Alexis had been pregnant , why were they so determined to keep officers from speaking to her?,with no option left, officers had to explain what would happen next.
Eventually , they agreed to bring their daughter down to the station , at the same time , investigators obtained a search warrant for both the car and the house.
At that point, officers still didn’t know if this was a moment of panic or if someone had already begun trying to cover their tracks…
But once they entered the house, the evidence began to tell a much darker story .
As officers moved through the home, they immediately began to see red flags.
They found traces blood in the bathroom, along with multiple pieces alexis’s clothing .
Including the same outfit had seen her wearing earlier that day.
Taken together ,the evidence pointed to one thing.
The baby had been born inside the house and afterward,someone had tried to conceal it .
But one discovery stood out from everything else, because it directly contradicted what officers had been told.
They found medical paperwork confirming Alexis had recently been pregnant.
A pregnancy thet her parents said ” they never knew about it”.
With that , the picture was starting come together and the one person who could explain it , was already sitting in an interview room at the station – Alexis Avila.
But the evidence left one critical question unanswered.
Why did she do it?
After reading her Miranda rights, the detectives starts at the beginning.
almost immediately, she volunteers an explanation, claiming she only found out she was pregnant the day before.
So, the detecive responds by bringing in something Alexis wasn’t expecting.
Instead of pushing the pregnancy further ,he rewinds the clock and asks her about the hours leading up to the dumping.
After Alexis confirms who the child’s father is, the detective decides to dig deeper , gathering his information directly from her, and turns to the one person who might offer a clearer picture of Alexis.
Her Ex- boyfriend stephen Astorga .
With how they met aside, detectives walk Stephen back through their relationship to establish a timeline to determine whether Alexis was pregnant during that period.
But what Stephen says next immediately reframeseverything the investigators had been up to that point.
According to Stephen, Alexis had already known she was pregnant well before January 7th.
He also told the detectives that two of them talked about having children together in the future.
Stephen also brings up an argument between them at a friend’s birthday party , one that spiraled far enough that police were eventually called.
It was afater that night that Alexis took Stephen back to her house where things only escalated further.
From that point on, Stephen told detectives he was never told about a pregnancy, not until the day after the baby was found in the dumpster.
Stephen was not a witness to what happened that day.
But his account narrowed the timeline in a way investigators couldn’t ignore.
And when detectives brought his statement back to Alexis ,she continued to insist she never knew she was pregnant.
Even after admitting what she did , Alexis continues to justify her actions, pointing to her age as the reason she left the baby in the trash, but by that point ,the investigation had already moved past explanations.
With a recorded confession and the evidence laid out, probable cause was established, Alexis Avila was taken into custody and formally charged.
During her trial in April 2023, her parents argued that Alexis was unfit at the time,
Claiming she was suffering from severe mental health issues and didn’t fully understand the consequences of her actions.
However , prosecutors, pointed to the decisions she made, the steps she took,
And the inconsistencies in her statements afterward.
In the end, the jury rejected the mental illness plea.
Alexis Avil was found guilty of attemptedfirst -degree murder and child abuse ,resulting in great bodily harm.
She was sentence to 18 years in prison with a 2 years suspension.
As for the baby , he was transported to a hospital in Lubbock , Texas, where doctors were able to stabilize him.
He survived and was later placed into protective care.