A mother who police say abandoned her hours-old baby girl in a cardboard box on a North Philadelphia street in December is now facing attempted murder charges, police announced Wednesday.
Cops issued an arrest warrant for Patricia “Dina” Crawley, 33, who they say has been linked via DNA evidence to the infant, who was found by residents during a street cleanup on 27th Street near Cumberland around 10 a.m. Dec. 21. Police said Crawley, who also goes by the alias Alisha Bogan, has an address on Gillingham Street near Tackawanna in Frankford and frequents the area near 26th Street and Lehigh Avenue, not far from where the newborn was found.
Crawley is described as black, 5 feet 5 and 160 pounds with black hair and brown eyes. Capt. John Darby of the Special Victims Unit said after receiving tips leading them to about 10 women, police brought Crawley in for questioning Jan. 4.
At that time, Darby said, Crawley denied any relationship to the baby girl. Police did not have enough evidence to arrest her then, but were able to take the DNA sample that was eventually matched to the baby.
“We had her under our roof in here. There was an opportunity at that particular time to kind of straighten this out, to take possession of that baby and let us know,” Darby said. “That didn’t happen. Ultimately, and thankfully, we had the benefit of the science that did that for us.”
DNA evidence showed that “she’s 138.9 million times more likely to be the mother of that baby than if we just picked a random woman off the street,” said Joseph Szarka, the lab manager from the police department’s Forensic Sciences Bureau.
That match, coupled with information on the baby’s grave condition provided to police by doctors who cared for her at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children’s neo-natal intensive care unit, was enough for the District Attorney’s office to approve an attempted-murder charge in the case, Darby said.
“As part of the charging process, doctors were consulted multiple times and in fact this baby was very much in danger of dying out there, just before Christmas, in a box left on the street in cold temperatures. It doesn’t get any worse than that,” he said.
He said Crawley has at least one other child that police know of. Court records show that she has been arrested before on charges including assault and retail theft.
In addition to the attempted murder charge, Crawley also faces charges of aggravated assault, reckless endangerment, endangering the welfare of a child and simple assault.
The baby was released from St. Christopher’s after spending 10 days in the NICU, Darby said, and is currently in foster care.
“It’s disturbing, to say the least. It’s troubling,” Darby said. “You’ve got a baby left out there on the highway.”
Anyone with information on Crawley’s whereabouts should contact the Special Victims Unit at 215-685-3265 or 3251.
This woman is obviously troubled. I don't see that the attempted murder charges are warranted, in particular since so many violent criminals get charged with manslaughter instead of murder. It seems to me there is a mental health issue here.— Wednesday- She does look a little "off".— pauljack
- SOMETIMES CRACK WILL DO THAT!!!!!!!!!!— AIR MGTJR
Comment removed.- More [hetero] family values.— Liberty4All
- That dude looks angry.— Section_Ape
- Hope and Change. If it is not this, it is a murder or a drug deal or rape or murder or rape or a drug deal. Rinse and repeat. Hope and Change.— flyers87
- That guy is one hard looking woman. Must be all those rocks she's smoking.— Thugbuster
- Hope this woman, get's help soon!! Before she does it again!!!— Dadair1
- She is 33 and the police are pretty sure she has another kid. Have they looked at school records? The child will lead them right to this horrid creature......— unbelieveable!
- Dats my baby's momma.— Black Label Society
Dana DiFilippo has covered murder, mayhem and miscellany at the Daily News since 2000. She grew up in Delaware County and studied journalism and photography at Penn State University. E-mail tips to difilid@phillynews.com.
---
Stephanie Farr has been reporting for the Daily News since 2007, covering everything from gay porn stars who entered the burglary business to moon trees, skinheads, murders and naked bike rides. She covers crime, both in the city and suburbs, and keeps clippings of bizarre Associated Press articles. Her favorite this year was the story about the drunk in Punxsutawney who gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a dead opossum. E-mail tips to farrs@phillynews.com.
---
Phillip Lucas joined the Daily News crime team in 2011. He grew up on the mean streets of Seattle and studied journalism and psychology at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Before landing in the City of Brotherly Love, Phillip was a reporter for The News Journal in Wilmington, Del. Email tips to lucasp@phillynews.com.
--
Morgan Zalot is the newest crime reporter at the Daily News, starting in 2011 after interning at the paper twice as a Temple University journalism student. In her past stints at the DN, she covered just about everything, from drunken Phillies fans to a barber shop in a high school to a grisly murder-suicide. She’s a born-and-raised Philly girl who grew up in the Northeast. E-mail tips to zalotm@philly.com.
 | Follow on Twitter |
Share your tips
To send news tips, breaking news pictures or other thoughts to the Philly Confidential team, email phillyconfidential@phillynews.com.- Attytood
- Philly Clout
- Philly Gossip
- Philadelphia Will Do
- Philebrity
- Phawker
- Philadelphia Speaks
- Young Philly Politics
- The Illadelph
- Philadelphia Police Department
- FOP
- Police Advisory Commission
- Ramsey Crime Plan
- FBI
- Fire Department
- District Attorney’s Office
- The Valley of the Shadow
- Cop in the Hood
- Joel Hoffman
- News | Sports | Business | What's Happening | Restaurants & Food | Entertainment | Living | Marketplace | Jobs
