These are the harrowing recollections of hospital staff including cleaners who found Alexee Trevizo’s lifeless infant son after she dumped him in a trash can after trying to give birth in secret.
Trevizo, 19, is awaiting trial on murder charges. She was bonded out of jail after her arrest in May and is allowed to graduate from Artesia High School in New Mexico before going to court.
On January 27, she gave birth to a full term, baby boy in a patient bathroom at Artesia General Hospital after complaining to her mother and doctors that her hips were sore.
She claimed afterwards that she had no idea she was pregnant, despite having an enormous baby bump, and that the baby ‘fell out’ of her as she went to the bathroom.
An autopsy suggests the infant was suffocated.
In video-taped interviews, multiple nurses and a hospital cleaning lady describe to Artesia Police detectives what they found when they entered the bathroom after convincing Alexee to leave it.
‘A gory, bloody, massacre, mess’
Cleaning lady Dia Lewis was the first to find the baby. She was called to the bathroom by nursing staff who feared Alexee had had a miscarriage.
‘It was a gory, bloody, massacre, mess,’ Lewis recalled in a shaky voice as she walked the detectives through the gruesome scene she encountered.
She began cleaning, mopping first to remove the blood from the floor, and wiping down the bathroom walls, toilets and surfaces.
Cleaning lady Dia Lewis was the first to find the baby. She was called to the bathroom by nursing staff who feared Alexee had had a miscarriage
‘I had to do everything twice. I usually throw my trash first but for some reason that night… I felt the trash, I looked in it, but when I picked it up there was some weight.
‘I started taking the trash out and when I did that’s when I seen there was a baby in there.’
She told the cops through a shaken voice how the sight of the infant traumatized her after losing her partner to suicide.
She said the boy was not ‘bruised’, but was ‘pink and purple’ with hair.
‘She kept flushing the toilet… and said all the blood was her period’
After giving birth, before staff found the baby, Alexee walked back to her hospital room.
She had been in the hospital complaining of abdominal pain and pain in her back and hips, but maintains she did not know she was pregnant.
Video showed her walking to the bathroom, clutching her bottom.
Staff became concerned about how long she was taking in the patients’ bathroom, and why she was flushing the toilet so frequently.
One of the nurses present was triage nurse Chris Sanchez. He described hearing her flush the toilet frequently
One of the nurses present was triage nurse Chris Sanchez. He described hearing her flush the toilet frequently.
Eventually, after around 17 minutes in the bathroom by herself, Alexee opened the door.
The floor was coated in blood and by this point, the baby was in the trash can.
‘I checked on her two to three times. I kept hearing the paper towel dispenser, flushing, running the water. Eventually I said, “you need to come out.”
‘She opened it and just kind of walked out. She didn’t say anything and she walked back…I went into the restroom and I saw a large amount of blood on the floor, on the back wall, and so I said “you OK? What happened?”
‘She said, “I’m on my period.”‘
Sanchez said that by this point, the hospital staff knew she was pregnant after receiving a positive blood and urine pregnancy test but they had not yet confronted her with that news.
She had denied being pregnant until that point, he said.
‘She adamantly denied it, said she was a virgin, had her period every month consistently. She said her last period was last prior on that month.
‘So then I started doing my charting and we called in the housekeeper to clean the’ restroom. She felt the weight in the waste basket.
‘That’s when we found the baby.’
‘I asked her if he took a breath… she said he just fell out’
After Dia Lewis found the baby in the trash can, she alerted the doctors and nurses and stood back.
A flurry of activity ensued, with doctors rushing to save the baby and perform an autopsy, while Alexee returned to her room where her mother was.
Marina Perez, a supervising nurse, described speaking with the teen.
‘I asked her, “did it take at least one breath or was it not breathing?”
Marina Perez, a supervising nurse, described speaking with the teen. ‘I asked her, “did it take at least one breath or was it not breathing?” ‘She said when she sat on the toilet it all just fell out, but when she had it in her arms “it wasn’t breathing, it wasn’t moving.”
‘She said, “can I tell you? I’ve been been having this bad abdominal pain, I felt like I needed to go poop, I asked if I could go, they said yes.”
‘She said when she sat on the toilet it all just fell out, but when she had it in her arms “it wasn’t breathing, it wasn’t moving.”
‘Of course you want to be very judgmental at that time and bite your tongue. I wanted to say, “well why didn’t you call us for help?”
‘She said: “He wasn’t moving, he wasn’t breathing, so I placed him in there.”
‘So then I asked, was it a steady boyfriend, she said yes. I said, did he know she was pregnant?
‘She said no.’
‘The umbilical cord looked like an animal had torn it apart’
Among the most graphic descriptions of what was discovered came from a nursing assistant who rushed to the bathroom after Alexee gave birth.
The assistant, named only as Lori in the video interview, told the detectives how it looked as though Alexee had ‘ripped the umbilical cord like an animal’.
‘I’ve dealt with death before but never like this . The umbilical cord looked like an animal had torn it apart.
‘Like, have you ever eaten string cheese? When you twist it.
‘That’s how the bottom of the umbilical cord looked. And I was like wow, this chick really ripped this thing apart, because they are hard to cut,’ she said.
‘I’ve dealt with death before but never like this . The umbilical cord looked like an animal had torn it apart,’ said the certified nursing assistant, who gave her name only as Laurie
She also described seeing the baby’s face clearly through the plastic bag when she picked it up.
‘She had it tight, the top was twisted and tucked under so it wouldn’t open up. Like when you grab trash and swing it, and folder it over.
That’s how it was. It was a clear bag. When I picked it up – all I saw was black and purple – that’s when I noticed it even more.
‘The bag suctioned to his face. This blood was fresh you could even smell it.’
Autopsy reveals baby boy had ‘air in his lungs’
One of the nurses described specifically asking Alexee whether the baby took a single breath after she gave birth, or if he was a stillborn.
‘She said he wasn’t breathing, he wasn’t moving,’ the nurse, Dia Lewis, said.
January 27: Trevizo and her mother, Rosa Rodriguez, in the hospital. They both insisted they did not know she was pregnant when police confronted them about finding the infant’s body in a trash can
But the autopsy revealed the boy had ‘air in his lungs’ when he died, which suggests he was breathing upon birth.
Alexee has been charged with first degree murder in addition to evidence tampering.
She has been allowed out on bail to return to school and graduate, and will return to court in September.
The teenager was arrested and charged with murder on May 10
The 19-year-old has been charged with first degree murder. She is due back in court in September but is allowed back to school and to graduate before then
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