Police seek public's help after newborn baby left on porch of London home
Bria Vanier opened the door to see two police officers standing on the porch beside a newborn baby boy wrapped in a blanket.
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Bria Vanier and her roommate were waiting for lunch to be delivered when there was a loud knock at their east London home.
Vanier, 38, immediately knew something was off because the food-delivery service she’d ordered from doesn’t usually knock at the door.
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“I was, like, that’s a cop knock,” she said in a Free Press interview Thursday outside her home on Sterling Street, northeast of Oxford and Adelaide streets.
Vanier opened the door to see two police officers standing on the porch beside a newborn baby boy wrapped in a blanket.
“They said they didn’t know how to pick up a baby. . . . So I held the baby until the ambulance got here. I immediately attached to it,” she said. “I brought him inside to warm him up. . . . He still had after-birth on him.”
Vanier said there was note with the baby, saying he had been born the day before and asking to find him a good home. “It was pretty crazy. I was, like, this happens?”
London police received a call around 1:30 p.m. Wednesday from a citizen after finding a baby on the porch of a home near Sterling and Oxford streets, police said. Paramedics took the baby to the hospital where he remained in good condition as of Thursday.
“The infant is in good health,” London police Insp. Sean Travis said. “It’s been transported to hospital and cared for.”
The Children’s Aid Society has been notified, but a criminal investigation “is secondary in nature” to finding the mother and reuniting the baby with his parents, Travis said.
“The London police primary point of concern right now is the health and welfare of the mother and to make sure she had medical treatment,” he said.
Criminal charges may apply to the case, Travis said, but would only be determined after the investigation is completed.
Cases of babies being abandoned are rare in London, he said.
“It is certainly not something that happens often. But it has happened in the past at different times,” Travis said, describing the unusual situation as “difficult for police officers to be involved in.”
He added: “But more importantly we recognize how difficult it must be both for the community and parents of this children.”
Investigators are asking anyone who was in the area between 10 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday, or who has surveillance footage from that time, to contact London police at 519-661-5670. They can also contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.
It wasn’t immediately clear who called police to alert them to the baby or how long he was left unattended, but Vanier said she believes the newborn was only on her porch for a few minutes before the officers arrived.
Vanier, who lives in the two-storey house with four other roommates, said she’s not sure why the baby was left at her home.
“It’s definitely the weirdest thing that has ever happened to me,” she said.
The situation is “heartbreaking,” said Jennifer Dunn, executive director of the London Abused Women’s Centre.
“We don’t want to take this lightly . . . but there are lots of reasons why somebody could have done that,” Dunn said. “Being scared and not knowing what to do or know where to go should be considered.”
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