A 21-year-old Florida mother was arrested more than a year after she allegedly asphyxiated her newborn within hours of giving birth inside her home. Bianca R. Desouza was taken into custody on Friday and charged with one count of aggravated manslaughter of a child and one count of neglect of a child causing great bodily harm, court records reviewed by Law&Crime show.
According to the probable cause affidavit, officers with the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office and Fire Rescue team responded to an emergency call at about 4:56 p.m. on May 2, 2022, regarding an unresponsive infant at a residence in an unincorporated area of West Boca Raton, Florida, about 45 miles north of Miami. The caller identified herself as the child’s grandmother and said she had walked into her daughter’s room and found the baby not moving.
Bianca R. Desouza (Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office)
First responders rushed the newborn to West Boca Medical Center, where the little boy died.
The baby’s mother, Desouza, then 19, told authorities she gave birth to the child in her bed and held him until he stopped crying, then she left him on the bed and took a shower without calling anyone. After the shower, she went into her mother’s bed.
“She said the birth happened quickly, and [she] did not know [the baby] was dead until her mom came in,” the affidavit states.
Desouza was scheduled to be induced the following day, and she and her husband had been talking about giving the baby up for adoption, the document states.
Desouza was checked into the Fort Lauderdale Behavioral Health Center, where she told staff she had a history of self-harm and severe depression. She also said she stopped taking her prescribed Lexapro two weeks before the incident, police wrote. Desouza’s mother told police that her daughter lived with psychosis and bipolar disorder.
In an interview with Desouza’s mother on May 4, 2022, she told police she thought her daughter “did something to the baby” and “might have had some sort of psychotic break.” She said Desouza was extremely stressed about not finding a suitable home for the baby to be adopted.
On May 11, a day after she was released from the hospital, Desouza allegedly told detectives she was “really confused” about suddenly going into labor but that it “didn’t hurt” to give birth. She said after the baby was born, she “just sat there” and watched him cry, explaining that she “didn’t know what to do,” so she “just looked at him.”
“I asked how long he cried for, she said, not long. I asked what made him stop crying and she recalled, she fell asleep and when she woke up he wasn’t crying. She thought he was sleeping,” the affidavit states. “According to [Desouza], he was lying on his left side. She didn’t put him on his side because she was afraid to touch him.”
That’s when she said she took a shower and laid down in her mom’s bed without checking on the baby, she allegedly told police.
When asked what she thought happened, Desouza said she “didn’t know but wants to,” the affidavit said. “I asked if she did something to him and she said, ‘No, I would never hurt him.’”
The medical examiner determined the child’s manner of death to be a homicide and the cause of death to be asphyxia, with the cause of injury including “chest compression.” The pathologist noted the child was born through the leg-hole of boxer shorts that Desouza kept on which, likely pressed his face against her thigh.
“[Desouza] did not attempt to move herself, remove clothing, reposition the baby, pick up, comfort, seek medical attention, or otherwise care for the child,” the document states. “[She] did not attempt to create an environment where the neonate could breathe without restriction during the birth process and failed to ensure his wellbeing after being born.”
Desouza was booked into Palm County Jail and released after posting a bond of $25,000. She is set to appear in court again on Jan. 8.
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