Posted: Sunday, August 1, 2004 12:00 am
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) - A three-day-old baby abandoned to the care of patrons at a bar is in a foster home and authorities are looking for the woman who left her there.
The woman had been given the baby by its mother, who asked her to find it a home.
The unidentified woman then took the infant to a bar, and sat him down. While patrons cuddled the baby she fled.
The woman had told bar patrons, "I can't handle it," said Tina Hartwick, owner of Jeannie's Place.
"She said she has this baby and she can't deal with it. She hadn't touched him, changed him, fed him," said bar customer Kelly Fitzwater.
Fitzwater took the baby home, changed his diaper and fed him and then returned to the bar and called police.
Police were able to find the mother after checking with a local hospital. They contacted her and were told she had given the baby to a friend who was supposed to find a home for the little boy.
Liz McDonough said giving a baby to someone else to find it a home technically is trafficking. "You can't say, 'Here, go find someone to adopt this baby.' The poor baby has to have a legal name," said McDonough.
"She cared enough not to throw him in a Dumpster," said Hartwick.
El Paso County Human Services officials will interview family members to help determine where the baby should go.
"You have to first try to understand whether there was some desperation on the part of the parent, feeling she couldn't take care of this child," said Barbara Drake, director of human services.
Fitzwater, who was herself adopted, said she wishes should adopt the child or at least learn "what he grows up to be."