A mother was sentenced last week to 15 years to life in state prison for murdering her infant baby right after giving birth and discarding the baby's corpse in a Stanton dumpster.
Juana Perez Valencia, 21, Anaheim, was found guilty by a jury Sept. 28 of one felony count of second degree murder and one felony count of assault on a child with force likely to produce great bodily injury resulting in death. This was a re-trial of the case; a previous jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict in January.
A mother was sentenced last week to 15 years to life in state prison for murdering her infant baby right after giving birth and discarding the baby's corpse in a Stanton dumpster.
Juana Perez Valencia, 21, Anaheim, was found guilty by a jury Sept. 28 of one felony count of second degree murder and one felony count of assault on a child with force likely to produce great bodily injury resulting in death. This was a re-trial of the case; a previous jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict in January.
On the evening of Dec. 22, 2009, Valencia gave birth to a baby girl in the restroom of Sombrero's, a Mexican restaurant in Stanton, where she was working as a food server. The girl was born alive, weighed 6.3 pounds, and was 17 inches long.
Valencia murdered the baby by suffocating her to death immediately after giving birth. She then put the girl in a plastic bag and threw her body in a dumpster behind the restaurant.
The following day, Valencia went to an Anaheim hospital for treatment. She claimed to have been hurt in a fall and denied having given birth, despite medical evidence that she had given birth to a full-term baby. The hospital contacted the Anaheim Police Department, which began investigating the case.
Anaheim Police Department determined that the defendant worked in Stanton, in the jurisdiction of the Orange County Sheriff's Department, and may have discarded the baby's body near her work. The Orange County Sheriff’s Department took over the investigation and discovered the girl’s body in the dumpster the day after the murder.
