CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, S.C. _ Investigators want a mental evaluation for the teenage mother accused of wrapping her dead baby in a plastic bag and placing her in a diaper box, which she then left out in the woods.
Breanna Lewis, 19, told investigators she remembers little about the death of her 11-month-old daughter, and has displayed odd behavior in recent weeks, Chesterfield County Sheriff Jay Brooks said during an emotional news conference Thursday.
Days before deputies found the baby in a diaper box about 1,000 yards behind her mother's home, Lewis was in a car crash in Anderson County, during which her car flipped and slid down an embankment, Brooks said.
"During that investigation of that wreck, at the scene she was screaming, 'Where's my baby? Where's my baby?'" Brooks said. Troopers later got a call from Lewis' baby sitter.
"I don't know what she's talking about," Brooks quoted the baby sitter as saying. "I have her baby."
Sheriff's investigators are working with the Highway Patrol to learn more about the collision and Lewis' behavior. She suffered bruises on her face from the crash, which on Tuesday she told investigators were from a stranger punching her in the face and abducting her daughter as she walked to the mailbox.
Authorities put out an Amber Alert to people within 300 miles of the home, and deputies frantically searched the house and the area around it for the baby, Brooks said. As investigators talked with Lewis, though, her story began to unravel.
"She was extremely agitated, extremely distraught," Brooks said. "She was not making very much sense. She was very uncohesive."
Lewis denied knowing where the baby was until investigators showed her a photo of the diaper box in which the girl was found.
"She has yet to tell us what happened to the child," Brooks said. "She says she does not remember. She says she blacks out when traumatic things happen to her."
The baby's father, using a gun, took his own life in front of Lewis in October, Brooks said. His family was seeking custody of the baby when she died.
"The family had some issues," Brooks said. "This lady has issues. She has issues that she's not going to be able to solve on her own."
Lewis is charged with filing a false police report, improper disposal of human remains and destroying, altering or concealing DNA. The results of a pending autopsy on the baby could prompt more charges, depending on whether her death was natural, accidental or a homicide.
The sheriff's office will ask a circuit court judge to order a mental evaluation for Lewis, who has not lived in Chesterfield County for long, Brooks said.
The South Carolina Department of Social Services has no open or closed cases involving Lewis or her daughter, but Brooks said investigators are working with DSS officials in North Carolina to see if there were any investigations while Lewis and her baby lived there.
