{"id":471713,"date":"2026-10-20T15:52:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T15:52:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/471713\/"},"modified":"2026-10-20T15:52:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T15:52:13","slug":"fort-worth-newborn-drowned-in-motel-bathtub-mother-charged-with-capital-murder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/471713\/","title":{"rendered":"Fort Worth newborn drowned in motel bathtub, mother charged with capital murder"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Two \"Two Two charged in death of an infant<\/a> <\/p>\n

Newly released police documents say a 23-year-old woman drowned her newborn baby in a bathtub before her boyfriend disposed of the body days later.\u00a0<\/p>\n

CAMP BOWIE, Texas – A Fort Worth mother is facing a capital murder charge after police say she drowned her newborn baby in a motel bathtub before her boyfriend threw the body in a dumpster.<\/p>\n

What we know:<\/p>\n

Avia Cantrell, 23, and Camron Baker, 26, are now facing charges after a baby was found dead in a Fort Worth dumpster.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to court documents, Cantrell admitted to police that she delivered a baby girl at the “Drummers Inn” last week.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Police say Cantrell admitted to drowning the infant and leaving her body inside a bag in their motel room for four days.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\" The Investigation <\/p>\n

The backstory:<\/p>\n

On Oct. 18, a homeless woman searching for items in a dumpster found a deceased infant girl inside a bag outside the Drummers Inn on Camp Bowie West Boulevard.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Police say the infant had been dead for an extended amount of time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A day later, on Oct. 19, police received a welfare check call on 23-year-old Avia Cantrell. Cantrell’s sister-in-law requested the check, telling police that Cantrell was pregnant and due soon.<\/p>\n

Officers contacted Cantrell in Room 205, where she had been living for the last two years with her 26-year-old boyfriend, Camron Baker, and three other children.<\/p>\n

Police say Cantrell confessed to giving birth to a full-term baby girl in her bathtub.<\/p>\n

According to the arrest affidavit, Cantrell told detectives that she left the baby face-down in the water for approximately 30 minutes.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

Cantrell called Baker at work to tell him she gave birth and the baby was gone, police say.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The couple kept the deceased infant in a bag by the toilet for four days.<\/p>\n

Baker told police they did not call for medical help when he returned home because they didn’t want to “catch a case.”<\/p>\n

On Oct. 18, Baker placed the baby inside a brown luggage bag with flowers on it and threw it in the dumpster, officials said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Baker is charged with abuse of a corpse. Cantrell is charged with capital murder.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Source: The information in this article comes from an arrest affidavit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Crime and Public Safety<\/a>Fort Worth<\/a>Texas<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two charged in death of an infant Newly released police documents say a 23-year-old woman drowned her newborn…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471714,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1046,116,118,117,223,122,216,393],"class_list":["post-471713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-crime-publicsafety","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news","tag-news","tag-tarrant-county","tag-tx","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}