CHICAGO _ Chicago police say a 16-year-old girl is the mother of a newborn found abandoned in a Northwest Side alley this week, and detectives are questioning her and the baby's father.
Police had been questioning the girl since Wednesday, when she told officers she had given birth to the boy who was found on top of a trash can in the Hermosa neighborhood around 4:15 p.m. Tuesday. Tucked into a canvas shopping bag, his naked body was covered by a towel and the umbilical cord was still attached.
Overnight, police cordoned off the home of the girl's family in the Irving Park community, a little more than two miles north of where the baby was found. Yellow tape blocked off a front porch and more tape cordoned off the back of the home in the alley, where two police SUVs were parked.
No charges had been announced as of Thursday morning.
The family of a missing pregnant teen had asked police to conduct DNA tests to determine whether the baby was hers. Marlen Ochoa-Uriostegui, 19, was about nine months pregnant when she disappeared in late April. Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said investigators have ruled her out as the mother.
The baby is listed in serious condition at Lurie Children's Hospital. The boy will be placed in a foster home while custody is worked out. For now, the baby has been named Patrick Casey Doe: Patrick after a paramedic who helped treat the baby and Casey after a police officer who cleared traffic for the ambulance to Norwegian American Hospital.
The baby was discovered by a mother and daughter who heard him screaming and took him to a firehouse around the corner at 1747 N. Pulaski Rd.
"The fireman on watch was trying to figure out what they were talking about and they handed him a shopping bag," Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford said. "He looked inside and was shocked to find a baby."
By this time, the baby was not moving.
The firefighter immediately alerted the rest of his crew and an ambulance was called. "They all started working on the child," Langford said. The baby was then taken to Norwegian American Hospital, where his vital signs improved.
Paramedic field chief Pat Fitzmaurice, who was with the baby from the firehouse to the hospital, said he took a peek after the baby was placed in an incubator. He was about 7 pounds and had reddish hair.
"His eyes were open and he was moving around. He was still fighting," he said. "At one point his hands were above his head, by his ears and I said to the nurse, 'He just said, I ain't done man.' "
He talked about naming him Rocky, but decided "it was too corny."
