A Texas woman who allegedly abandoned her newborn daughter on the side of the road almost 23 years ago now faces manslaughter charges for her death.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and the Office of the Attorney General’s Missing Persons and Cold Case Unit have secured an indictment for manslaughter in the second degree for Shelby Stotts, per a news release from Paxton’s office.
Stotts, who is a 48-year-old resident of Johnson County, is accused of allowing her baby to bleed to death in a ditch in a cow pasture between the towns of Alvarado and Burleson in November 2001.
The child, dubbed “Angel Baby Doe” by the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office, was found by a person picking up cans. She had been wrapped in a jacket, but her umbilical cord had been left unclamped, causing her to bleed to death.
After hitting a dead end in the investigation of the newborn’s death, the local authorities turned the case over to the Attorney General’s Cold Case and Missing Persons Unit in June 2022. DNA samples from the newborn and items collected at the scene were also sent to a lab called Othram in The Woodlands, which specializes in forensic genealogy.
“Baby Does, murdered children, there is no one to advocate for these cases because the victim is usually murdered by the people who would have advocated for them,” Dr. Kristen Mittelman, Othram’s chief development officer, told Fox 4 KDFW.
“It was a difficult case, but we were able to actually provide the identity to law enforcement,” she added.
In September 2023, Stotts was reportedly confirmed as the biological mother of Angel Baby Doe. This is the 15th case broken by Othram in Texas, while forensic genealogy overall has led to the conviction of serial rapists, the identification of missing children, and more.
The Angel Baby Doe case will be handled in Johnson County, where Stotts will be prosecuted under the laws in effect at the time of the offense.
“After more than twenty years, we are closer to securing justice for Angel Baby Doe and ensuring that the person responsible for this tragedy is held accountable,” AG Paxton said. “I am thankful for our investigators’ talent and tenacity, and I commend the law enforcement professionals with the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office for their dedication to uncovering the truth.”
Stotts previously worked for Cleburne High School, which is part of Cleburne ISD. The district released a statement saying that she was no longer an employee and was taking “these allegations very seriously,” per Fox 4.
In Dallas this year, there have been 128 homicide offenses, 15 of which were categorized as “family violence,” per the City’s crime analytics dashboard. Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter offenses comprised 102 of the 128 homicide offenses, while 15 were incidents of negligent manslaughter and eight were justifiable homicides.
Chronically understaffed, the Dallas Police Department has struggled against the murder rate, which swelled considerably last year, as covered in The Dallas Express. DPD has around 3,000 uniformed officers, whereas the City recommends around 4,000 to adequately ensure public safety.
The department also received only a budget of $654 million for the fiscal year, which is rather low compared to the funding allocated towards law enforcement in other high-crime-rate areas like Chicago and New York City.