After giving birth, Avila said she "panicked". Photo / Facebook
After giving birth, Avila said she "panicked". Photo / Facebook
The grandmother of the baby dumped in a trash can by his teen mom has defended her daughter saying "everybody makes mistakes".
New Mexico teen Alexis Avila was arrested and charged with attempted murder after she was caught throwing her newborn baby boy into a giant rubbish skip on Friday.
CCTV captured the moment the 18-year-old put the infant into a rubbish bag before tossing him into the dumpster.
Now Avila's mother, Martha, has broken the family's silence, saying her daughter's birth came as a "shock" to the family.
Alexis Avila was seen arriving at the dumpster on surveillance footage and throwing away what looked like ordinary garbage. Photo / NBC / KOB-TV
"People can talk and give their opinion. Everybody makes mistakes. People can preach all they want, they can judge all they want but we only care about the judgment of one," she told the Daily Mail.
She added: "Yeah it has been a shock."
Martha told the Daily Mail that she wasn't sure if the family would be handed custody of baby Saul – although that is likely to be contested by the family of the baby's father.
According to text messages shared with Daily Mail by a friend of the 16-year-old, Avila had told him she was pregnant but claimed she miscarried the baby after they broke up.
But friends of Avila's said she had been open about her pregnancy at school and stopped coming to class shortly before the Christmas break in mid-December.
After giving birth, Avila said she "panicked". Photo / Facebook
However, both Avila and Martha told police they didn't know she was pregnant.
Avila told police she gave birth in the bathroom of her parents' house and panicked before dumping baby Saul in the rubbish.
The 16-year-old father's uncle has also come forward, saying baby Saul is likely to be taken into care by the boy's 50-year-old grandmother.
He said: "[His dad] isn't the type to give up on a family member. He won't let that baby be without a home. It's been a big shock for us all. We only found out about the baby last night."
Six hours after dumping the baby, three people combing through the dumpster were seen removing the bag, looking inside and finding the infant.
A woman was seen quickly wrapping up the newborn and taking the baby to a truck as a man called authorities, news outlet KOB reported.
"Upon arrival officers rendered aid to the newborn child and the baby was transported to a local hospital by Hobbs EMS.
"The child was subsequently transported to a Lubbock Hospital for further paediatric treatment," police said in a statement.
The woman who found the child wrapped him and took care of him until police arrived. Photo / NBC / KOB-TV
The baby is in a stable condition.
Police sifted through CCTV footage of the incident and were able to locate Avila's vehicle.
Joe Imbriale, owner of the store that caught the incident on camera, said he knew something wasn't right when police asked to review the footage.
"Something wasn't right. I saw the officers' faces and they did not look right. They really didn't," Imbriale told KOB.
"I said, 'What is it we are looking for?' and she goes, 'We're looking for somebody who dumped a black garbage bag in your dumpster.' I turned around, I said, 'Please don't tell me it was a baby,'" Imbriale said.
"I was in shock just to see this," he added. "I can't sleep at night just knowing that this baby was just tossed in a dumpster like that. I'm sorry but who does that? That is evil. I don't have words for it."
