A man who disposed of his newborn daughter in a commercial recycling bin — sparking a citywide outcry and decade-long mystery until DNA evidence surfaced — was sentenced Friday to four years in prison.
Alnath O. Oliver, 53, pleaded guilty to a single count of criminally negligent homicide under the terms of a plea deal. A third-degree rape charge against him was dismissed as part of the deal.
Oliver told Multnomah County Circuit Judge Kelly Skye that he wanted to spare the mother of the child the burden of enduring his trial.
She wasn’t charged in the case.
“It was very important that she understood that none of this was her fault and that I would be taking full responsibility for everything,” he said. “From the moment my daughter passed, I knew that this was something I was going to face.”
Workers at a Swan Island recycling plant discovered the baby, still attached to the placenta, as they monitored a conveyor belt on May 28, 2013. Nicknamed “Baby Precious,” the newborn was eventually interred at Riverview Cemetery and an intensive investigation was launched by Portland police.
“The community and law enforcement were transfixed by the loss of this beautiful little girl,” prosecutor Robin Skarstad said at the sentencing hearing. “But there was no link, no way of knowing where this child had come from.”
The case sat silent for 10 years until Brendan McGuire, a former Portland police detective and now FBI agent, submitted the case for advanced DNA testing. Oliver was arrested last September and told investigators that no one in the 15-year-old mother’s family knew she was pregnant. She gave birth inside his Northeast Portland apartment.
Oliver told the mother he would drop the child, named Amara, off in front of a fire station or hospital. Instead, Oliver said the baby became unresponsive as he walked toward Legacy Emanuel Medical Center, so he put the body into a recycling bin.
The mother never knew the baby lived only a few hours, the prosecutor said.
Defense attorney Alexis Andersen said Oliver suffered from alcohol addiction and was remorseful once he was caught.
The judge, however, said Oliver owed another apology to the baby’s mother.
“The trauma that she experienced at that time, being abused by someone who was more than three times her age,” Skye said, “that’s a big part of this case.”
Oliver gave no reply.
Skye followed the deal struck by prosecutors, dismissing the third-degree rape charge and other counts, and ruling Oliver eligible for sentence reduction programs
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