A baby was found dead in a dumpster outside the Drummers Inn in Fort Worth on Sunday, Oct. 18. Police say the child’s mother drowned the baby, and the mother’s boyfriend placed the infant’s body in a bag in the dumpster. Both parents face charges.
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A 23-year-old woman faces a capital murder charge after police say she drowned her infant daughter in the bathtub at a west Fort Worth motel immediately after giving birth, according to court documents.
Avia Cantrell is being held in the Fort Worth City Jail. She and her boyfriend, 26-year-old Camron Baker, were arrested Monday, police said.
According to Cantrell’s arrest warrant affidavit, a woman found a dead baby inside a bag while dumpster diving at Drummers Inn on Sunday night. The woman panicked and ran to find a friend who lives at the motel. When the friend confirmed that it really was a baby, the woman found a phone and called 911, she told police.
Police said it appeared the infant had been dead for quite some time. Detectives with the Crimes Against Children Unit were reviewing surveillance footage of the dumpster Monday when they learned that a family member had requested a welfare check for Avia Cantrell, according to the affidavit.
Cantrell’s sister-in-law told police that the 23-year-old was pregnant and due to give birth soon. She also had “a history of having a baby in the past which nobody knew about,” the affidavit states.
The officer found Cantrell in her room at Drummers Inn, but said she seemed nervous when speaking with him, according to the affidavit. She also denied having been pregnant.
Detectives obtained video footage of Cantrell from a few months prior, and her stomach area appeared larger, the affidavit states. She was also captured on video taking a box of items, including an infant seat, to the dumpster on Sunday afternoon.
Cantrell agreed to speak with the detectives from the Crimes Against Children Unit, but at first, she denied being pregnant recently. She told police she and her boyfriend had been living at Drummers Inn for the past two years. She said she’d had four children and two miscarriages, according to the affidavit. She also said two of her children had been born at home and not at a hospital.
When asked why family members would say she was pregnant, Cantrell said she’d told her mother and grandmother she was expecting a baby in order to get more money for herself and the children, the affidavit states.
Cantrell admitted she’d heard about the deceased infant found in the dumpster, but said she didn’t know anything about it at first. Later she started crying and said the baby was hers, according to her statement in the affidavit. She said she’d given birth in the bathtub about 7 a.m. on Oct. 14. The little girl was moving when she came out, Cantrell said, but she left the infant face down in the water for about 30 minutes.
Cantrell told the detectives her boyfriend was at work when the baby was born. She said she put the baby in a bag near the toilet, and he saw it when he got home. Baker, who faces an abuse of corpse charge, told police he put the baby’s body in an overnight bag four days later and took it out to the dumpster, the affidavit states.
The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office will officially determine the infant’s cause and manner of death. The investigation into the child’s death remains ongoing, police said.
This story was originally published October 20, 2026 at 4:00 PM.
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Harriet Ramos covers crime and other breaking news for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.