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Heartache over baby's death extends to Georgia

The tragedy dashes the hopes of a 24-year-old woman who was to adopt Mary Louise Doe's baby.

By ABBIE VANSICKLE
Published May 12, 2006

TAMPA - Angel Andino spent weeks getting ready for the baby girl she agreed to adopt from Mary Louise Doe.

She decorated the nursery in a Winnie the Pooh theme. She bought a car seat, baby clothes and a stroller. She picked out a name, Alyssa, and asked everyone at church for their prayers.

"It was a baby that I could have given a better life, that I could have raised in a godly home, that I could have shown a different way of life," she said.

But Andino's feelings of excitement and anticipation turned to fear on Monday night when Doe's family called to say Doe might no longer be pregnant. They told her someone had seen Doe and noticed her stomach was flat.

Police said Doe gave birth to the baby girl in a dirty alley off N Albany Avenue. She told police she listened to the newborn cry for five minutes, then abandoned it. Investigators found the decomposed body on Tuesday night.

Autopsy results are not yet available.

Doe, 41, faces a charge of child neglect. A judge Thursday raised her bail from $7,500 to $25,000.

Police questioned a possible witness, Loretta Weaver, 41, on Wednesday night, and said she will not face charges. Other witnesses will be interviewed.

Doe declined to speak with a reporter, but Andino and Doe's family say she was living on the streets in the weeks before the infant's death.

Andino, 24, of Brunswick, Ga., heard of Doe's baby about five months ago by way of Doe's niece, Brenda Mack.

Doctors told Andino, a secretary for an insurance company, she couldn't have children of her own. When she heard Doe didn't want the baby girl, Andino offered to adopt her.

The baby was Doe's sixth child. The two older ones - Benjamin Reynolds, 26, and Kawandria "Peaches" Doe, 24 - were raised by relatives. Likewise, relatives now raise the youngest, ages 3, 8 and 13. Doe lived on the streets, abusing crack cocaine and alcohol, said her mother, Louise Doe, 60.

Years ago, Doe was a quiet, beautiful young woman, a cheerleader and softball player, her mother said. She was the second-youngest in a family of seven children, growing up in Tampa public housing. She quit school at 16 and had a baby. Shortly after, she met an older man who introduced her to cocaine.

Doe has been incarcerated three times.

She was in prison from October 1990 to February 1992 after convictions for grand theft and throwing a deadly missile, corrections spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger said. From April 1994 to May 1996, she served prison time for burglary and trafficking in stolen property. She was in prison from January 1999 to May 2002 for burglary and grand theft.

She committed crimes to get money for drugs, her mother said.

When Andino heard that Doe might have given birth, she immediately began the more than four-hour drive to Tampa from her Georgia home. She figured police and family were already looking for the mother and child.

But when she arrived, Doe was still missing. No one had notified police. Andino helped the family in a frantic search in West Tampa. As daylight faded, Doe's daughter, Peaches Doe, spotted her mother at Main Street and Rome Avenue. They demanded answers.

"She was swearing up and down that she'd never had a baby," Andino said.

Doe seemed annoyed and bothered by the questions, Andino said.

Not long after, police found the baby's body.

"Words can't express how I felt or how I still feel," she said. "To me, it wasn't her baby, it was my baby."

[Last modified May 12, 2006, 06:58:02]