CHESTERFIELD, SC (WBTW) – Shortly after an AMBER alert was issued Tuesday afternoon for a missing baby in Chesterfield County, the sheriff’s office confirms the baby was found lifeless inside a box near the mother’s home.
Chesterfield County Sheriff Jay Brooks says the abduction of 11-month-old Harlee Lane Lewis was reported around 2 p.m. Tuesday.
The baby’s mother told deputies she was walking to her mailbox on Daisy Lewis Drive, off of Jackson Drive, with the child when a tan colored SUV stopped in the middle of the road.
A white male wearing a black coat, toboggan and one black glove got out of the vehicle and punched her multiple times in the head, the mother reported to deputies.
The man, who was reportedly around 6-foot-2 inches tall, then grabbed the 11-month-old baby girl and left in the SUV. The mother said she had never before seen the man who assaulted her.
The AMBER Alert for Harlee Lane Lewis said the baby girl was wearing a purple onesie.
A press release from the sheriff’s office just moments after the AMBER alert was issued said deputies found the body of the child hidden inside a diaper box about 1,000 yards from the home.
Spokesperson for the Chesterfield County Sheriff’s Office, Leighton Bell, says the child’s mother, Breanna Lewis, has been taken into custody as the primary suspect in the death of her child.
Lewis is charged with filing a false police report, according to the sheriff, and she’s being held overnight and will be re-interviewed tomorrow.
Other family members are also being questioned, Bell says.
Sheriff Brooks says the mother admitted to investigators that she made up the story about the assault and the abduction.
SLED and the FBI have been called in to investigate the case. SLED agents officially canceled the AMBER Alert at 4:51 p.m.
