Kendra Meaker, teen mom, charged with abandoning baby on roadside
A 19-year-old mother has been charged for abandoning her 3-week-old baby on the side of a rural road for 12 hours.
Kendra Meaker, the woman charged, then lied to police when she was interviewed by authorities, prompting an Amber Alert.
“She probably felt like she had no other choice,” says Tina Dennison, whose neighbor knows Meaker. “She may have been trying to figure out something else and in desperation maybe this is what happened.”
Tina also wonders if this was all caused by postpartum depression or something worse.
“[She’s a] young mother [with] two young children,” says Tina. “I wished she would have reached out in a better way. There’s other ways to handle this.”
According to NBC News, Kendra Meaker, the teen mother, was charged with obstrucion of justice and endangering the life or health of a child. Meaker’s bond was set to $100,000 on Friday.
The only thing that Meaker told a judge during a court appearance on Friday was that she had no job and no income.
During the hearing, Sherrif Jimmie Dison explained to the court that Meaker showed up to his department on Thursday morning and had told him that someone had nabbed her 3-week-year old baby, Mia Graci Thompson, out of her car after she went inside the post office in Toulon, to mail a package. That morning, police issued the Amber Alert.
Meaker eventually changed her story and confessed to Illinoi State Police and FBI that she had left her baby on the roadside, explained Dison. Her young baby was eventually found on the gravel roadside, where it had been from 8:30 a.m. to 8 p.m.
The baby, Mia Graci Thompson, is reportedly doing well. (see photo below)
http://www.change.org/petitions/mia-s-law# Still need more signatures to ensure this type of attempted murder of a child is a felony – NOT a misdemeanor!
http://www.change.org/petitions/mia-s-law
Please sign the petition to change the law so that tossing out an infant carries more charges than a simple misdemeanor.