Shiloh Police Department
Matthew Espino-Tonche claimed he found a baby in a Shiloh, Illinois, dumpster, police say.
A Metro East man claimed he rescued a battered baby girl from a dumpster — but police say the story is a hoax, and the child is actually his daughter.
Officers were called at 5:38 a.m. on Monday to Metro East Hospital in Shiloh, Illinois, where 21-year-old Matthew Espino-Tonche had brought the infant. The child, younger than a month old, had suffered "multiple, very serious injuries," according to police.
Espino-Tonche claimed he found the girl across town in a dumpster, but investigators soon determined the child belonged to him and had not been in a dumpster. Detectives also arrested the girl's mother, 19-year-old Elyssa Arellano, who police found hiding in the back seat of Espino-Tonche's vehicle, according to a news release.
They were both arrested, and St. Clair County prosecutors charged them on Tuesday with one count each of aggravated battery to a child with great bodily hard and causing a child to be endangered.
They were jailed on $250,000 bond. The baby remained at the hospital in serious, but stable condition, police say. The Department of Children and Family Services is also looking into the case.
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