Warning: This report contains disturbing details involving the death of a child.
A homeless woman is charged with second-degree intentional murder after she told authorities that she drowned her seven-month-old infant because she “could not enjoy her bath” while he was crying.
Esperanza Rae Harding, 20, then admitted that after she and her boyfriend had sex as the body of the deceased infant lay on the floor in the next room, she put the baby’s body in a backpack and threw it in the Bloomington hotel dumpster where she was staying.
The body of baby Mateo Harding has not yet been found by investigators.
According to the charges filed against Harding in Hennepin County District Court, police were called to Children’s Hospital on March 6 on a missing child report. Police spoke to Harding, who claimed her child had died of natural causes at the hospital on March 1.
The hospital had no record of the child being admitted or dying at the hospital, and the medical examiner’s office had no record of the child.
The criminal complaint does not detail how or why Harding came into contact with Children’s Hospital.
Police continued to interview Harding given the suspicious nature of her claims, the charges say. After continuing to provide inconsistent information, Harding finally admitted that the child had died on Feb. 28 at the Bloomington hotel.
Harding was interviewed again after Bloomington police were brought into the case. She stated that she had been dating a man named Edwin Trudeau who did not like her child and that he wanted her to give up the baby for adoption. She stated that Trudeau wanted her to “prove that he was her top priority.”
Harding said she had been alone in the hotel room and was taking a bath when the child started crying in the other room, and she became upset that she couldn’t enjoy her bath.
Harding put the infant in the full bathtub and drowned him. She then took a photo of the infant floating face down in the full tub. The photo was later recovered from her phone by police.
Harding said she picked the baby up out of the water after he was “done moving, done twitching.”
During the incident, Harding began texting her boyfriend, 18-year-old Trudeau. Police were able to retrieve the texts from Harding, which said, “he doing to much rn, I cant fucking sleep, Im trying tho, Im about to do something bad, Please answer me, He going to no be here much longer.” Trudeau responded in a text saying, “OK that’s ok.”
A follow-up text from Harding stated, “I cant he going die, Im done, If u took the time to fill a bath that I cant use he can use it, Im sorry.” Two minutes later, Harding texted and said that the baby was dead and that she was sorry. Trudeau responded, “Don’t be.”
Harding sent subsequent texts referring to herself as a monster for what she had done and asking Trudeau how to get away with it. At one point, Trudeau texted telling Harding to “just stop trying” to do CPR. Trudeau also texted and said, “its ok ima help” and later, “your making things harder stop we are a team we do this.”
Harding told officers that Trudeau came to the hotel room after she had killed the child. She stated that Trudeau gave an effort at CPR, which was unsuccessful, and that they then had sex in the other room while the child lay dead on the bathroom floor. Harding said she then packed up the infant in a backpack and threw him into a dumpster in the hotel parking lot.
Harding told police that Trudeau told her to put the child’s body in the garbage and make it look like she was throwing out trash.
Harding said that Trudeau told her to keep her mouth shut, saying, “If you go down, I go down, no matter what,” and that “it is always going to be us, Bonnie and Clyde.”
Trudeau admitted that he didn’t call for help after finding the child deceased in the bathroom but proceeded to have sex with Harding and then left the hotel.
Trudeau, of Minnetonka, is charged with a felony count of aiding an offender by being an accomplice after the fact.
Both defendants made court appearances on Friday, and both were granted public defenders in their separate cases. Harding is being held on $1.5 million bail, and Trudeau is being held on $500,000 bail. Both remained in custody as of Sunday night, and both have their next court hearings scheduled for April 3.
On Sunday, mourners gathered outside the Bloomington hotel around a makeshift memorial for baby Mateo. Signs posted at the memorial said, “Nobody heard my cries,” and “Nobody is looking for me.”
A GoFundMe account created by relatives of the child’s biological father to cover Mateo’s funeral expenses stated, “He was a happy, sweet and loving baby boy.”
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Minnesota Crime Watch & Information publishes news, info and commentary about crime, public safety and livability issues in Minneapolis, the Twin Cities and Greater Minnesota.
Crime Watch MN
Minnesota Crime Watch & Information publishes news, info and commentary about crime, public safety and livability issues in Minneapolis, the Twin Cities and Greater Minnesota.
