FAIRFAX, S.C. — When police began looking for a missing infant last week, they expected the worst.
But their search for a tiny body became a rescue mission when they pulled the hours-old newborn from a shallow grave where ants crawled on his skin and a board covered his body.
Police say Carolyn Jones early Friday buried her newborn son headfirst in a trash dump in this town about 70 miles south of Columbia. Then, they said, she left him to die.
"The good Lord was looking after this infant," said Police Chief John Sullivan.
Jones, 21, has been charged with assault and battery with intent to kill. She was held in lieu of $40,000 bond on Monday. Her 5-pound, 11-ounce son was in good condition at a Columbia hospital.
At a hearing, Jones would not answer questions about why she left the baby. Her mother said Jones buried the boy because she thought he was dead.
"She's a good person," Bertha Jones said of her daughter. "She knew that baby wasn't alive. I know in my heart she would have never did what she did" if she had known the baby were alive.
Police allege that Jones gave birth Friday, then took the baby to the dump near this rural community of 2,500 people and buried him in a 14-inch grave. She then went to Allendale County Hospital, where doctors alerted police that the woman had signs of giving birth but had no baby.
Jones told authorities that she thought the baby was dead and buried it along a dirt road. After an hour of searching, police returned to the hospital and asked Jones to show them the grave, said Sullivan.
Jones was taken by ambulance to the dump and told police where she left the infant, he said.
"She pointed right to where it was — we started digging," said paramedic Joe Topper. "The baby was crying. It sounded like his lungs were doing good."
The boy was found face-down in a shallow grave, hidden by a board. "He had a pulse; some of the dirt was moving up and down," said Marvin Williams, assistant police chief.
Bertha Jones said neither she nor her daughter knew about the pregnancy until the baby was born.
The state Social Services Department took emergency custody of Jones' 2-year-old son and the infant on Monday, said agency spokesman Jerry Adams.