Police say the baby girl was born alive at Burn Lake on Feb. 7 and died after being placed in a portable toilet holding tank.
LAS CRUCES, N.M. — A Las Cruces woman has been charged and later indicted after police said she gave birth to a baby girl in a portable toilet at Burn Lake on Feb. 7, then placed the newborn in the toilet’s holding tank, where the child died.
The case drew immediate attention in southern New Mexico because investigators said autopsy results showed the baby was alive after birth and inhaled and swallowed the blue chemical liquid used in portable restroom sanitation. Sonia Cristal Jimenez, 38, was first arrested on a first-degree felony child abuse count, and a Doña Ana County grand jury later returned an indictment as prosecutors moved the case into district court.
Police said the investigation began about 10:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 7, when staff at Memorial Medical Center contacted officers after Jimenez arrived at the hospital and appeared to have recently given birth, but did not have a baby with her. According to the Las Cruces Police Department, the man who took her to the hospital told officers the pair had been at Burn Lake earlier that evening and that Jimenez had spent time inside a portable toilet there. Officers then went to Burn Lake, off Burn Lake Road, and searched the area. They found a newborn girl inside the holding tank of a portable toilet, police said. Firefighters recovered the baby, but she was already dead. In the city’s account of the case, investigators said they believed Jimenez had given birth to a live child, cut the umbilical cord and placed the infant into the tank.
The allegation that the child was born alive became the central fact in the case. Police said an autopsy was conducted that Monday at the New Mexico medical investigator’s office in Albuquerque. Investigators later said the exam found the baby had breathed and swallowed the blue sanitation liquid while still alive. Authorities said that liquid was found in the baby’s trachea, lungs and stomach, findings they cited as evidence that the child was alive when she entered the tank. The city did not release the baby’s name, and court reporting reviewed later in the month did not identify one. Police also said they did not expect to charge Jimenez’s boyfriend because investigators believed he did not know she had given birth at the lake. Officials have not publicly described in detail how long the couple had been at Burn Lake, whether anyone else was near the portable toilets at the time, or whether surveillance footage or witness video exists.
Burn Lake sits on the edge of Las Cruces and is known locally as an outdoor recreation area, which made the setting especially jarring for residents following the case. The criminal allegation did not stem from a long-term missing-child investigation or an unidentified infant found days later. Instead, police said the timeline moved quickly, from the hospital call to the search at the lake to the recovery of the baby’s body that same night. That compressed timeline gave investigators an unusual chain of evidence: hospital observations, statements from the man who drove Jimenez, the location at Burn Lake, and the autopsy findings from the state medical office. Local coverage in the days after the arrest repeated the same broad outline, but many details remained tightly held by law enforcement. Public statements did not explain whether Jimenez had shown signs of labor earlier in the day, whether emergency help was sought before the hospital visit, or whether prosecutors planned to add any counts beyond the child abuse charge. Those unknowns left the autopsy and the initial police narrative at the heart of the case.
Jimenez was arrested on Wednesday, Feb. 11, after investigators obtained a warrant, police said. She was booked into the Doña Ana County Detention Center and was initially held without bond. The original charge announced by police was intentional child abuse resulting in death, a first-degree felony under New Mexico law. Later, on Feb. 24, a Doña Ana County grand jury indicted Jimenez on the same charge, according to a subsequent report based on court records. That report said an arraignment was scheduled for March 2 in district court. Public accounts available afterward did not add a plea or a broader court summary, so the latest clearly reported procedural step was the indictment moving the matter forward in the 3rd Judicial District. Prosecutors had not publicly outlined a trial date in the reports reviewed, and no public statement described whether the defense had challenged the arrest warrant, the autopsy conclusions or Jimenez’s conditions of release. Those issues are typically addressed as a felony case enters formal district court proceedings.
Police Chief Jeremy Story described the death in later media coverage as one of the most heartbreaking and disturbing cases of his career, language that reflected how sharply the allegations resonated in Las Cruces. Even with that strong reaction, the public record remained narrow and procedural. Officials named the suspect, the location, the charge and the medical findings they say support it. They did not release lengthy interviews, detailed probable-cause language or broader family background. That left the scene itself to carry much of the story: a lakeside portable toilet, a late-night hospital visit, officers sent back to Burn Lake, and firefighters pulling a newborn from a holding tank filled with sanitation fluid. Those facts, presented in police and court summaries, turned the case into one of the region’s most closely watched criminal matters of February. The next steps are expected to come through district court hearings, where prosecutors and defense lawyers can begin testing the evidence in public filings and in open court.
As of the latest public reporting, Jimenez remained the only person charged, and the case had advanced from arrest to indictment, with district court proceedings set to continue after the early March arraignment date previously reported. The next clear milestone is a public court update that shows her plea, bond status and any future hearing dates.
Author note: Last updated March 15, 2026.