Texas Mom Sells Infant for $4,000

Texas Mom Sells Infant for $4,000

Megan Heichelbech thought she was responding to a legal adoption advertisement earlier this month, but found out it was an ad to urgently sell a baby the day she was scheduled to buy a plane ticket to bring 4-month-old Eden back to her home in Florida.

Heichelbech responded to the original ad on June 13, and said it asked for $6,500. She said she and the baby's mother exchanged emails, text messages and photographs.

The ad read, "I'm in search of an great family for my son. He is four months old and he is african american and hispanic. I can no longer care for him the way he needs to be. We are living in a womens shelter now. Im working with an adoption agency so there is an adoption fee they have set up. I believe its $6,500. Thank you and god bless."

But when Heichelbech asked for the names of the birth mother's adoption attorney and facilitators, she didn’t get any.   The birth mother — whom police did not name but who lives in Dallas, Texas — told Heichelbech to come get the baby, bring an ID and as much amount as she paid for her last child, which was $4,000. The Texas woman claimed the whole exchange would take at least 30 minutes.

Knowing the paperwork could take days, Heichelbech called Child Protective Services in Texas to ask about proper procedure.

"I called to ask them if I could find out ... if it's not legal at this point, what do I need to do to make it legal,?" Heichelbech said.

That night, detectives called her and said they suspected the Texas woman was trying to sell her baby for cash.

An apartment manager entered a Shadow Ridge Village apartment that day to collect rent and found Eden, the baby, alone.  Dallas police arrested Eden's mother Friday on charges of child abandonment and the infant was taken into protective custody.

Posted by James Fried on Monday June 25 2012, 2:42 AM EST. Ref: CNN. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Featured News, World. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0