John Jefferson
Left: Karima Jiwani. Right: The newborn known as Baby India (Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office).
The Georgia mother who gave birth to a baby girl only to dump her in the woods inside a plastic bag with her umbilical cord is headed to prison.
A judge sentenced 41-year-old Karima Jiwani last week to 15 years in prison followed by another 15 years probation after she pleaded guilty to criminal attempt to commit murder and first-degree cruelty to children, court records obtained by Law&Crime show. Jiwani ditched the newborn in June 2019. The girl likely would have died alone in the Forsyth County woods if not for teenagers who lived nearby who happened to hear the girl crying.
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Investigators dubbed the girl “Baby India” and went on the hunt for the mother. It took about four years but cops identified Jiwani as the mother through DNA.
As Law&Crime previously reported, two teenagers on the night of June 6, 2019, became worried when they heard what they thought sounded like a baby crying in the woods near their home. Eventually, they notified their father, who originally thought the sound was an animal, and the family started searching their property and the woods nearby. Minutes later, they found the baby.
“This child was tied up in a plastic bag and thrown into the woods like a bag of trash,” Forsyth County Sheriff Ron Freeman said in a 2023 press conference announcing Jiwani’s arrest. “I can’t understand that.”
Without any identification, the baby was given the name “India” and was rushed to a local hospital.
Throughout the press conference, Freeman only referred to Jiwani as India’s “biological parent” as he said he has trouble with saying the suspect is actually her mother. He said at the time the baby was healthy and flourishing. She is now 5 years old.
“How a parent, and I happen to be one too, can do such a callous thing, is both incomprehensible to all of us, and is infuriating,” Freeman said emotionally. “I’m dumbfounded by any reasoning that could be there, and how somebody could have the ability to leave their own child to die.”
The sheriff’s office worked with Othram Labs to identify India’s birth parents so detectives could ultimately investigate the case and make an arrest. Othram Labs “uniquely offers in-house processing of evidence, from DNA extraction, enrichment, and repair, to sequencing and genealogy.”
Forsyth County deputies said they were able to identify India’s father in early 2022 and then turned their eyes on Jiwani by conducting surveillance and collecting data on her to positively identify her as the mother and prove she was the one who dumped her.
The sheriff confirmed there is “zero evidence” that Baby India’s biological father had any idea about the pregnancy or abandonment of the little girl. Evidence from the crime scene also shows only one person was most likely there, investigators said.
Jiwani has a history of “hidden and concealed pregnancies,” detectives explained, stating after interviews with family and friends, she knew about India’s pregnancy and went to extremes to conceal it. The sheriff went on to say Jiwani had several “surprise births.”
At the time of her arrest, Jiwani was living with her other children.
“No motive can justify this decision,” Sheriff Freeman said. “It is literally one of the saddest things I have ever seen.”
The deputy who rescued India was one of the officers who arrested Jiwani. Officers used the sheriff’s handcuffs for the arrest.
Vanessa Bein contributed to this report.
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