Teen Mom Gives 1-Month-Old Baby to Stranger at Bus Stop: ‘Do You Want Him?’

A San Antonio woman says she was waiting for a bus when a teenage mother approached her with a startling proposition: Take her baby.

Jennifer Benavides opened up about the encounter after Karla Ibarra was arrested on a child abandonment charge, according to a KSAT 12 News report published Thursday, September 17. Benavides said she was at a bus stop near Pecan and Navarro streets on Sunday night when Ibarra, 18, initially asked to use her phone before offering her the infant.

“Very beautiful baby. Handsome. One month old,” Benavides said about the baby. Then she said Ibarra asked, “‘Well, do you want him? I’m going to give him away. I’m going to give him to somebody.'”

Per the report, Benavides said she was stunned and tried to convince Ibarra not to leave the child. Rather than simply accepting the baby and letting the teenager walk away, Benavides persuaded her to come to a friend’s home, where Benavides fed the infant and changed his diaper before contacting San Antonio police.

Ibarra then called for an Uber and left without the baby, Benavides said, per the outlet.

Officers responded to a commotion shortly after 11:30 p.m. on Broadway near East Pecan Street, according to an earlier KSAT 12 News report. Ibarra later returned while officers were still at the scene and was taken into custody, police said.

“I can’t take any credit for that. God just put me at the right place and the right time,” Benavides said, per the outlet. “It’s upsetting to know that even with all the resources that we have out there that someone would do this.”

According to the report, Benavides admitted that she briefly worried she could find herself in legal trouble after seeing Ibarra being detained. She feared the teen might give police a different account of what had happened that night and potentially implicate her.

Per the report, witness Arthur Villarreal, who was working as a valet nearby, saw the police response unfold.

“I was walking down the street. The cops had a girl right here sitting on the curb, and there was a baby in a carriage,” Villarreal said. “I think she was a homeless lady, at that, the woman that got the baby.”

After Ibarra’s arrest, Child Protective Services confirmed that her son had been placed in the care of relatives, per the report. She was charged with abandoning and endangering a child with intent to return, and a judge set her bail at $7,000, according to WKRC. As of the latest publicly available reports, Ibarra had not entered a plea.