A worker made a gruesome discovery behind a mortuary near Los Angeles on Monday: the body of an infant in a car seat.
The baby’s missing father has been named as a person of interest, said Sacramento County officials. In a previous briefing, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Detective Steve Blagg said that shortly after 10 a.m., deputies were called to Funeraria del Angel in Bellflower after the worker, who was cleaning up the grounds at the time, discovered the abandoned child's body.
Detectives said the body was that of a female around a year old found in an upright car seat, covered by a blanket.
The little girl, who has since been identified as 8-month-old Alexia Rose Echeverria, was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics.
Investigators believe Alexia died in Sacramento before being brought to the location and being left near a dumpster.
The baby had been reported missing with her father, 22-year-old Alexander Echeverria of south Sacramento. He was last seen with his child at 10:30 p.m. Friday in Bellflower.
The Sacramento County Sheriff's Department is working with local and federal authorities to find him.
"He is considered at-risk due to suicidal statements made to family members recently," the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department said.
Detectives are unsure of how Alexia died or how long her body was at the location.
According to Blagg, there were no immediately apparent signs of trauma.
“We could only see very little," he said at the scene. "We’ll be able to examine more once the coroner gets here and we have an autopsy.”
The mortuary where Alexia's body was discovered occupies the same strip of highway that houses a high school and several fast food restaurants. Footage from the scene showed sheriff’s vehicles stationed near a dumpster and a detective taking notes.
On Tuesday, the girl's mother, Karla Alvarado, spoke with reporters and revealed a haunting call.
Alvarado shared that she saw her daughter on FaceTime early Sunday but later that day she received an upsetting call.
"At around 4 p.m., he called me crying hysterically," Alvarado shared. "He couldn't even talk, and I was super scared. I was like, 'What's going on? Did something happen to Alexia? Did you get into a car accident? What happened?'" she told ABC 13. "Because there was a lot of noise in the background, and he couldn't tell me. He just kept crying and crying and crying, and I was like, 'What happened?'"
She demanded that he bring her daughter or she'd call the police. Unfortunately, he never did.
Alvarado also said that a family member was able to speak to Echeverria before he went missing and asked details about what happened. “He was playing with her, here in Sacramento, and he threw her in the air and she fell and she wasn’t waking up,” Alvarado said, according to CBS Los Angeles.
He then allegedly claimed to have driven the injured baby to a hospital but then decided to drive to where his mother lives instead — 400 miles away. “He just left her there like she was trash or something,” Alvarado said. “I just want them to find him. I want to know exactly how my baby passed away, why he left her there, why he couldn’t face the consequences.”
