Texas mother Courtney Minor has been charged with murder after she allegedly threw her newborn baby into a dumpster. On August 24, 2025, Minor was arrested in connection with the infant’s death, the Fort Worth Police Department told WFAA.
She was charged with capital murder of a child under the age of 10 and abuse of a corpse without legal authority. Currently, Minor is being held at Tarrant County Jail on a $500,000 bond. The charges came more than a year after the tragic incident.
In July 2024, a baby was discovered inside a suitcase that had been left in an apartment complex dumpster at 4700 Norma Street in Fort Worth. Police allege that Minor placed the infant — who was still alive at the time — into the luggage, rolled it to the complex, and tossed the suitcase into the dumpster with the baby inside, NBC 5 reported. Later, someone found the baby dead and reported it to the police, per WFAA.
Minor “ultimately confessed to the baby being alive at birth and that she did put the suitcase, with the baby inside, in the dumpster,” the Fort Worth Police Department’s Crimes Against Children Unit shared, according to NBC 5.
Thus far, the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office has not released the baby’s cause of death.
Under Texas’ Safe Haven law, parents can surrender an unharmed baby younger than 60 days old at a hospital, firehouse, or EMS station, NBC 5 noted. The firefighter or medic cannot ask parents questions aside from the infant’s medical history. The state’s Department of Family and Protective Services then takes custody of the infant, and the parents face no criminal charges.
The state added to its Safe Haven law in 2023, allowing parents to surrender their newborns in climate-controlled boxes outside certain fire stations, WFAA reported.
