Taylour Sierra Dickinson now faces sentencing after authorities said she left her newborn in a dumpster despite Nevada’s surrender law.
SUN VALLEY, Nev. — Nevada law offered Taylour Sierra Dickinson a way to surrender a newborn to an emergency provider without leaving the child unattended, authorities said. Instead, prosecutors accused her of putting her newly delivered son in a garbage bag and a dumpster, conduct that has now resulted in an attempted-murder conviction.
Dickinson, 29, pleaded no contest July 29 in Washoe County District Court and is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 7. Prosecutors dismissed a separate charge of child abuse, neglect or endangerment as part of the agreement. The plea eliminated an August trial and left Dickinson facing a possible state prison term of two to 20 years. The case has repeatedly prompted Washoe County officials to publicize Nevada’s safe-haven statute, which allows a qualifying newborn to be voluntarily delivered to designated emergency-service providers rather than abandoned in an unsafe location.
Nevada’s law applies when a child is, or appears to be, no more than 30 days old and a parent voluntarily delivers the infant to a provider without expressing an intent to return for the child. The statute defines qualifying providers to include hospitals, public firefighting agencies, law enforcement agencies and certain other emergency medical facilities and services. Once a provider takes possession, the law requires action to protect the newborn’s health and safety and directs agencies to make required child-welfare and law-enforcement notifications.
The statute also limits what a parent must disclose in a qualifying surrender. Unless authorities have reasonable cause to believe the child was abused or neglected beyond the fact of being surrendered, the parent generally does not have to provide identifying information and must be allowed to leave. Medical and background information may be offered voluntarily. Those provisions are part of a system intended to move a newborn directly into protected care while allowing a parent who cannot or will not care for the infant to relinquish the child safely.
Washoe County officials brought that law into public discussion within days of the July 5, 2025, incident. The sheriff’s office included a safe-haven reminder when it announced Dickinson’s arrest, stating that newborns could be legally surrendered at designated emergency locations. District Attorney Chris Hicks’ office repeated the message when announcing formal charges. Neither agency suggested that the surrender law excused the alleged conduct. Instead, the reminders underscored that authorities believed a lawful alternative was available before the child was left in a dumpster.
The baby was discovered because someone near the Sun Valley apartment complex heard crying from the trash container. The citizen entered the dumpster, found the newborn and removed him before emergency responders arrived. The boy was taken to Renown Regional Medical Center, where authorities said he was healthy and doing well after the rescue. Sheriff Darin Balaam credited the passerby with saving the child’s life and said the case had deeply affected both the community and his office. Officials withheld the child’s identity because he is a minor.
Investigators said the circumstances began hours before the rescue. Dickinson told detectives that she had not known she was pregnant until she unexpectedly gave birth in a bathroom during the early morning of July 5. Court testimony placed the birth at about 2:30 a.m. According to investigators, Dickinson used a towel to pick up and wrap the infant, placed him inside a garbage bag and took the bag to the apartment complex dumpster about an hour after the birth. Authorities said they also reviewed evidence from the area while establishing the timeline.
Dickinson’s statements to investigators became a major part of the prosecution’s early presentation. Authorities said she initially gave an account that did not fully acknowledge that she knew she was disposing of a baby. She later admitted knowing that she had given birth, according to testimony about the interview. Dickinson described herself as panicked and said that placing the infant in the dumpster seemed like her “best option.” She also claimed she hoped a passerby would find the child. That expectation became especially significant after a passerby did, in fact, hear the infant and intervene.
Investigators said Dickinson also spoke about her family’s finances and her views on having additional children. She said the household was living paycheck to paycheck and that she did not want more children. Those statements were part of the state’s account of what Dickinson told detectives after the newborn was found. They did not resolve the legal question of criminal intent on their own. Prosecutors nevertheless charged attempted murder, alleging conduct serious enough to support the offense, and a judge later set Dickinson’s bail at $1 million cash only.
The safe-haven law provides an important legal contrast but does not replace the facts prosecutors had to establish in Dickinson’s criminal case. A parent may legally relinquish a newborn by transferring the child into the custody of a qualifying provider under the statute. Leaving an infant unattended in a trash container is not a surrender under that procedure. The attempted-murder prosecution therefore focused on Dickinson’s actions, her statements and the circumstances surrounding the baby’s placement in the dumpster, rather than simply on her failure to use the safe-haven program.
An earlier incident also surfaced during the 2025 bail proceedings, adding another issue to the court record but not another criminal charge. Prosecutors said Dickinson reported that she had suffered a miscarriage in 2023 and placed a baby near or in a dumpster at a different apartment complex. That child did not survive, according to reporting from the hearing. The Washoe County District Attorney’s Office said no case was submitted for prosecution at that time because of the facts, circumstances and evidence available to investigators. Dickinson was not charged over the 2023 episode.
The 2025 prosecution continued independently of that earlier matter. Dickinson eventually pleaded not guilty and was preparing for a trial scheduled to begin in August 2026. Her July 29 change of plea ended that path. A no-contest plea allows a criminal case to conclude without the defendant making the same express admission associated with a guilty plea. For sentencing purposes, however, Dickinson now stands convicted of attempted murder. The child-abuse charge that originally accompanied the attempted-murder count was dismissed under the negotiated agreement.
The change carries substantial consequences. Nevada law provides that an attempt to commit a category A felony may be punished by two to 20 years in state prison. That means Dickinson’s October hearing will determine where her sentence falls within the applicable range. The sources reviewed for this report do not establish what specific sentence prosecutors will ask the judge to impose or what term the defense will seek. A possible maximum is not a prediction of the final sentence, which remains for the court to decide.
The safe-haven provisions invoked by local officials have a separate child-welfare process after a surrender. Providers must safeguard the newborn and make required reports, and the law addresses the effect of surrender on parental rights and later proceedings. The system is built around physical transfer of the baby to a responsible emergency provider. That distinction explains why officials repeatedly referenced it after the Sun Valley rescue: the newborn in this case ultimately reached emergency care only because a third party heard him from the dumpster rather than because he was directly surrendered.
Public information about the boy after his initial hospital care remains limited. The sheriff’s office reported shortly after Dickinson’s arrest that he was healthy and doing well, but officials said they would restrict additional details because of the sensitive nature of the case and the involvement of a minor. No reliable public source reviewed for this report establishes his current placement, and authorities have not publicly identified him. The criminal proceeding has therefore unfolded largely around Dickinson while the child’s privacy has been maintained.
The judge will decide the punishment for attempted murder, bringing the criminal case closer to its end. Dickinson’s sentencing is set for Oct. 7, 2026, in Washoe County District Court. The safe-haven law that officials emphasized after the newborn’s rescue remains separate from that sentencing decision, but it has become one of the case’s clearest public-policy facts: Nevada already had a legal mechanism for placing a newborn directly into safe custody.
Author note: Last updated August 30, 2026.