A Houston woman who sparked national outrage after abandoning her newborn in a dumpster has learned her fate more than a year after the harrowing incident.
According to Law & Crime, Everilda Cux-Ajtzalam was sentenced Monday to seven years in a state correctional facility after pleading guilty to felony child abandonment in a case that drew national attention. Harris County District Judge Veronica M. Nelson handed down the sentence as part of a plea deal in which Cux-Ajtzalam admitted to placing her baby in a trash bag and discarding him behind a taco truck in southwest Houston.
According to authorities, Cux-Ajtzalam gave birth alone on July 21, 2023, while working at the taco truck. Surveillance cameras captured the young woman delivering the baby, later named Gabriel by authorities, and almost immediately placing him in a trash bag, then a trash can, and finally in a dumpster.
Texas Woman Who Abandoned Newborn Baby in Dumpster is an Illegal Alien from Guatemala
The saddest tragedy there is…
18-year-old Everilda Cux-Ajtzalam had entered the country illegally as an unaccompanied minor.
According to police, pic.twitter.com/Q85rcLhy7e
— Trumpusa1 (@Trumpusa1A1) August 2, 2024
Moments later, a passerby at a nearby apartment complex heard the baby crying from inside the dumpster and called 911. Firefighters arrived and rescued the newborn, who was later hospitalized and placed in foster care.
Cux-Ajtzalam was arrested several days later and remained in custody at the Harris County Jail until her sentencing. On Monday, she entered her guilty plea in a mostly empty courtroom, speaking through a K’iche’ interpreter. “Yes, it came from my heart,” she told the judge when asked to confirm her plea.
Her defense attorney, Fitzgerald Eze, declined to comment following the hearing. Prosecutors also offered no further remarks in court. A spokesperson for the county later confirmed that the baby, now thriving in foster care, owes his survival to the quick actions of the passerby who heard his cries.
“Today, baby Gabriel is healthy, thriving, and living with his foster parents,” the spokesperson said. “We are grateful to the person who happened to hear his cries from the dumpster, called police, and ultimately saved Gabriel’s life.”
#Houston Everilda Cux-Ajtzalam de 18 años enfrenta cargos por abandonar a su bebé recién nacido. Hoy su fianza fue incrementada a $200,000. ”Baby Gabriel” se encuentra aún en el hospital y bajo custodia de CPS. pic.twitter.com/CppJpZ7Cdc
— Leslie Enríquez (@LeslieEnriquez) July 29, 2024
Cux-Ajtzalam’s arrest was one of at least five reported cases of infant abandonment in the Houston area during the summer of 2023. Two of the babies were found dead. The cluster of cases sparked public debate over Texas’s restrictive abortion laws and whether sufficient awareness exists about the state’s Safe Haven legislation, also known as the Baby Moses law.
The law allows parents to legally surrender unharmed newborns at designated locations such as fire stations or hospitals—no questions asked.
In an interview with The Washington Post last year, Cux-Ajtzalam said she came to Houston from Guatemala and earned just $500 a month working in the taco truck to support her family back home. She also revealed that Gabriel was the result of a rape and that she feared her boyfriend would leave her if he learned about the baby. She claimed she had no knowledge of the Baby Moses law.
According to her attorney, Cux-Ajtzalam had given her son a different name, Nathaniel, and was seeking a future reunion with him. That future remains uncertain. After serving her sentence, she is expected to be deported.
