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Mother Accused Of Abandoning Child At Sacramento Truck Stop Says She Left Infant With Husband

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — A Lake County woman accused of abandoning a special-needs infant at a busy truck stop is pleading behind bars for help from her husband.

A truck stop worker found the baby on Sunday and called police.

Christina Reed tells CBS13 that this is just a big misunderstanding.

"I don't know what's going to happen but hopefully mommy with be home soon with the baby and daddy," she said in a jailhouse interview. "We'll see what happens because I love you."

Overcome with emotion, she wants her four children to understand that she didn't abandon her little sister.

"I would never do that," she said.

Reed says she and her husband were visiting Sacramento from Lake County, hoping to buy a car. The couple got into an argument at the truck stop, where she says she became frustrated and left her baby on the sidewalk with her husband.

"Last time I saw her she was sitting in her car seat sitting outside," she said.

She was gone for more than an hour, and when she returned:

"He wasn't there," she said. "I came back looking for my husband and my baby."

The husband wasn't there, but officers were.

"When I come back, I get arrested because they say I abandoned my child," she said. "But I didn't do that."

The baby is now with Child Protective Services.

Reed says her six-week old child has a rare disease that left her partially paralyzed from the waist down.

Her husband apparently never returned to the truck stop. Reed reached out to him through a bail bondsman, but was shocked by his response.

"Because we were fighting yesterday, he told the bondsman not to call back," she said.

She's now facing child endangerment charges.

"I swear on everything I have, that was not intentional," she said. "I love my baby. She just started to smile and she's so beautiful."

Reed is being held without bail as detectives look for her husband for questioning.

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