Danbury woman charged nearly 8 years after baby found dead at Stamford recycling facility

A Danbury woman has been arrested and charged with murder in connection with the death of a newborn boy whose body was found at a Stamford trash and recycling facility nearly eight years ago, according to an arrest warrant obtained by NBC Connecticut.

Dominique Harrison, 28, is charged with murder with special circumstances. She was arrested on June 18 of this year. The arrest warrant was sealed for 14 days.

On Oct. 16, 2018, workers at City Carting and Recycling, a trash and recycling facility in Stamford, found the body of a full-term baby boy while processing recyclable materials, according to the warrant.

The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner ruled in March 2019 that the newborn had been born alive and that the cause of death was being placed in the garbage. His manner of death was ruled a homicide, the warrant stated.

The baby had extensive blunt-force injuries after traveling through the recycling system, according to the warrant.

Investigators were unable to generate any leads for the case until October 2023, five years after the baby died, when they received a lead that led them to a family that could be related to the baby, the warrant stated.

Detectives used DNA testing and research to identify the baby’s great-grandparents, uncles, the baby’s father, and eventually Harrison as the child’s mother, according to the warrant.

Stamford detectives found the baby’s father while surveilling him in November 2025. They saw him smoking a cigarette while driving his pickup truck and discarding it. They collected the cigarette and did a DNA analysis, which confirmed the man was the baby’s father, the warrant stated.

Through research on the father’s Facebook profile, Harrison was identified as a potential mother. In December 2025, detectives surveilled her and saw her drinking from a Dunkin’ Donuts cup. When she discarded the cup, detectives collected it and did a DNA analysis. The analysis confirmed that she was the baby’s mother, according to the warrant.

Harrison was interviewed multiple times in 2026 and gave varying accounts of what happened after she gave birth. She ultimately told police that she gave birth alone in the bathtub in her Danbury home in October 2018. She told investigators that the baby’s father did not know she was pregnant, the warrant stated.

In an interview, Harrison admitted that she put the newborn in a dumpster while the newborn was alive after the birth, according to the warrant.

Investigators ultimately concluded that Harrison intended to kill the baby boy by abandoning him in the recycling dumpster.

“A reasonable person knows that all newborn babies need proper care to survive, and without said care, the newborn baby will eventually die,” the warrant said. “Harrison never intended to car for Newborn Baby Doe; she never fed him, she didn’t seek prenatal care, and she did not obtain baby clothing or furniture because she wasn’t planning on keeping it.’”

The warrant also states Harrison later surrendered another newborn under Connecticut’s Safe Haven law in 2021. The law allows a parent to voluntarily give up an infant who is up to 30 days old to the nursing staff of an emergency room and not be subject to arrest for abandonment.

Harrison’s bond is set at $2.5 million. She will appear in court again on July 24 Danbury Superior Court.

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