KANSAS CITY —A Kansas City woman has been charged in connection with the death and abandonment of an infant whose body was found in a field in the area of 40th and Pittman in May, according to Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker.
Raeleena S. Barlett, 25, faces a felony charge of Abandonment of a Corpse.
According to court records, on May 13, Kansas City police officer responded to woods nearby a residence regarding a report of a dead body.
They found a deceased infant in a field, a 19-acre vacant lot near 40th and Pittman Road. Two days later, Bartlett, the deceased infant's mother, had reported to a witness that her child was deceased. But the mother offered no more information regarding the death.
Bartlett told police that her daughter died May 6, when she said she found the child cold and stiff. She didn't know how the child ended up abandoned in the field.
This case remains under investigation. The Jackson County Medical Examiner has ruled the cause and manner of the child's death to be undetermined. No signs of physical abuse of the child were determined from the investigation.