Polk County officers responded to a 911 call when a resident heard a baby crying in the woods around 2:00 a.m.
Sheriff Grady Judd said, “The girl was wrapped in a blanket, still attached to the placenta. The temperature outside was in the lower 50s, and members of Polk County Fire Rescue checked the girl out and determined that, based on the girl’s temperature, she had been born about an hour before she was found.”
The Polk County Sheriff’s Office (PCSO) in Florida rescued the newborn baby girl who had been abandoned in Mulberry in late January.
Now, as of November 29, the baby girl has officially been adopted!
The heartwarming update was shared on the county sheriff’s official Facebook page: “We have an exciting update to share with you. Nearly one year ago, on January 28th, at about 1:47 in the morning, PCSO deputies rescued an abandoned newborn baby girl in Mulberry.”
The couple who adopted the baby has chosen to keep a low profile for now, declining interviews. However, they allowed the police to share heartwarming photos of the child with the community that had followed her story and prayed for her well-being,” the PCSO said.
“We are thrilled to share with you these photos from this morning of this precious angel with her new mom and dad, along with PCSO’s Detective Green and Sgt. Ryan,” the PCSO shared on Facebook.
During a press conference on January 29 after officials discovered the child, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd provided some details about the circumstances surrounding the baby’s abandonment. Deputies responded to a call about a baby crying in a wooded area near the Regal Loop Mobile Home Park.
A neighbor initially thought the sounds were “some cats screaming and fighting.” The screaming subsided for around 90 minutes, until the neighbor “heard screaming and crying again.”
“She went outside and said, ‘Well, that’s a baby.’ So, she got her husband and the two of them searched around and out in the woods,” Judd described. “They found this infant, this beautiful baby girl.”
Deputies discovered the infant, who Judd named Angel Grace Lnu, wrapped in old blankets on a hill. Despite extensive efforts, the mother has never been located or identified.
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Police estimated she had been born roughly an hour or so before she was found, and weighed about six-and-a-half pounds.
“She’s as beautiful as an angel. It’s by the grace of God she’s not dead and the Lnu [means]the last name is unknown,” Judd said during the January press conference.
Florida’s Safe Haven Law allows parents to legally surrender a baby aged one week or less at designated locations without facing criminal charges. However, this heartwarming adoption story is a rarity for the department, emphasizing the importance of such protective measures for infants.
Now, after ten months and one day, the rescued baby girl officially has a forever family, marking the end of a remarkable journey that began with her abandonment in the woods.
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