Alexis Avila, 18, was been arrested and charged with attempted murder and child abuse for allegedly tossing her newborn child into a dumpster 

The grandmother of the baby dumped in a trash can by his teen mom has defended her daughter, telling DailyMail.com: ‘Everybody makes mistakes.’

Hobbs High School student Alexis Avila, 18, was arrested and charged with attempted murder after abandoning her newborn baby boy in a dumpster behind a shopping mall in Hobbs, New Mexico, on Friday.

The newborn, who has been named Saul by his 16-year-old father, is currently recovering at a hospital in Lubbock, Texas, and is being cared for by the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department.

Now Avila’s mother Martha, 47, has broken her silence to defend her daughter and told DailyMail.com that the birth came as ‘a shock’ outside her $104,000 home in Hobbs.

Speaking exclusively to DailyMail.com, she said: ‘People can talk and give their opinion. Everybody makes mistakes. People can preach all they want, they can judge all they want but we only care about the judgment of one.’

She added: ‘Yeah it has been a shock.’

Martha told DailyMail.com that she wasn’t sure if the family would be handed custody of baby Saul – although that is likely to be contested by the family of the baby’s father.

Avila’s mother Martha, 47, has broken her silence to defend her daughter and told DailyMail.com that the birth came as ‘a shock’

The shocking footage from New Mexico shows Avila tossing her baby in to a dumpster in a trash bag

After giving birth, Avila said she ‘panicked.’ She wrapped her son in a towel, placed him in a white plastic bag containing some trash, and a larger black trash bag, and drove around, before throwing the child in the dumpster at the Broadmoor Shopping Center at around 2pm. The baby was found six hours later.  

Speaking to DailyMail.com, the 16-year-old boy’s uncle said the baby is likely to be taken in by his 50-year-old grandfather, an entrepreneur who runs an oilfield servicing business eight miles out of town.

He said: ‘[His dad] isn’t the type to give up on a family member. He won’t let that baby be without a home. It’s been a big shock for us all. We only found out about the baby last night.’

According to texts shared with DailyMail.com by a friend of the 16-year-old, Avila had told him she was pregnant but claimed she miscarried after they split last summer.

But friends of Avila’s said she had been open about her pregnancy at school and stopped coming to class shortly before the Christmas break in mid-December.

Both Avila and her mother Martha told police they did not know she was pregnant, with Avila telling cops that she gave birth in the bathroom of her parents’ modest home last Thursday and panicked before dumping her baby in the trash.

Avila, who is due in court in Lovington, New Mexico, on Wednesday afternoon, is currently out on bond and is laying low at her parents’ house.

She was caught on camera dumping her baby in a dumpster at the Broadmoor Mall in Hobbs last Friday afternoon – while cops have released the panicked 911 call that followed five hours later when dumpster divers found the child.

According to the call, baby Saul was ‘freezing cold’ and ‘still had his umbilical cord attached’.

‘People can talk and give their opinion. Everybody makes mistakes,’ Avila’s mother said. The dumpsters where she dumped her son are pictured 

Panicked 911 calls detail the horrifying moment a newborn baby was found in a dumpster in New Mexico. ‘We just found a baby in the god**n trash,’ the caller is heard saying. ‘He’s freezing cold and still has his umbilical cord attached’

Footage from the same camera caught the moment a heroic woman rescued the child from the dumpster

Michael Green, Hector Jesso and April Meadow spotted the infant after hearing his cries and said they had assumed it was a cat when they first pulled the baby out.

Surveillance video captured the scene as they opened the bag to find a shivering, whimpering newborn baby inside.

Meadow is heard on the call telling cops the baby is ‘freezing cold and very, very, very weak’ before adding that she had wrapped the child in her coat to keep him warm.

Avila was arrested the following day. According to the criminal complaint, she confessed to throwing away her child.

The 18-year-old told police she did not know she was pregnant until she went to a doctor for a stomach pain on Thursday.

The following day, she delivered her son in a bathroom at her parents’ home. After giving birth, Avila said she ‘panicked.’

She said she had wrapped her son in a towel, placed him in a white plastic bag containing some trash, and a larger black trash bag, and drove around, before throwing the child in the dumpster at the Broadmoor Shopping Center at around 2pm.

Avila told cops she did not know she was pregnant until she went to see a doctor for a stomach pain on January 6. The next say, she delivered her son in her parents’ bathroom 

Avila’s mother told DailyMail.com that the birth came as ‘a shock’ outside her $104,000 home in Hobbs, New Mexico 

During her interview with the police, Avila was quoted as referring to her child as ‘it.’ Police later executed a search warrant at the family’s home and seized physical evidence, including bloody clothing.  

Avila was released from jail after posting $10,000 unsecured bond less than two hours after her arrest.

August Fons, the acting chief of Hobbs police department, said he had never before come across a case like this.

‘If you are struggling with a new infant, the best response is to find somebody who can help you with that,’ he said.

‘Contact us, and let us help you through the situation.’ 

This post first appeared on Dailymail.co.uk

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