RawNews1st – Court documents allege that 20-year-old Esperanza Rae Harding showed up at Children’s Hospital saying that her child died of natural causes at the hospital.
However, the hospital didn’t have any record of the child, nor did the medical examiner.
Police responded and interviewed Harding, who then admitted her child didn’t die at the hospital. Rather, she said she drowned the boy in the bathtub of a Bloomington, Minnesota hotel. Then, she allegedly put his body in a backpack and threw it in a dumpster.
Harding later said she was dating a man who didn’t like her child and wanted her to give the child up for adoption to prove he was her top priority.
On February 28, according to the complaint, she was taking a bath in the hotel room, she said the child was by himself in the other room and started crying.
She then admitted that she got upset because she couldn’t enjoy her bath and drowned the boy.
Authorities recovered cell phone evidence, including a picture of the child in the tub allegedly taken after the incident and text messages Harding sent to 18-year-old Edwin Trudeau, whom she claimed to have been dating, according to court records.
“Im about to do something bad, Please answer me, He going to no be here much longer,” Harding allegedly texted Trudeau, to which he responded, “Ok that’s Ok” charges read. When Harding texted again that the child was dead and that she was sorry, he allegedly responded, “Don’t Be.”
Harding claims Trudeau came over to the hotel room, and they tried CPR, but it did not work.
No one called 911 for help, and charges allege Trudeau suggested Harding bring the child to the dumpster and act as if she was throwing the trash out.
While they were at the hotel, Harding claimed Trudeau kept yelling they needed to get out of this situation, saying, “If you go down, I go down no matter what,” and that “it is always going to be us, Bonnie and Clyde,” the charges allege.
Trudeau was charged on Friday with aiding an offender by being an accomplice after the fact. A judge set his bail at $1 million without conditions or $500,000 with conditions.
Harding appeared in court on Friday, and her bail was set at $1.5 million. They both remain in custody at Hennepin County Jail.
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