Prosecutors charged Alexee Trevizo with first-degree murder and tampering with evidence last year, claiming that the then-teenager gave birth to a baby boy in the bathroom of a hospital during a visit to the ER and put the baby inside a trash can.
Alexee Trevizo will not be heading to trial later this month as initially planned in the wake of a recent court ruling.
Prosecutors charged Trevizo with first-degree murder and tampering with evidence last year, claiming that the then-teenager gave birth to a baby boy in the bathroom of a hospital during a visit to the emergency room and put the baby inside a trash can.
Trevizo then returned to her hospital bed and allegedly said nothing about what happened until she was informed that staff had discovered a dead baby in the trash, according to prosecutors.
A trial date of August 26 had been set in that case but a case information sheet obtained by Inside Edition Digital shows that the trial date and an August 6 pretrial hearing have both been canceled and the case vacated at this time.
The decision by prosecutors to not move forward with the case at this time comes after the judge ruled that all comments allegedly made by Trevizo in the presence of hospital staff, as well as all video footage of her taken inside the medical facility, would not be admissible during her trial in a pair of court orders filed on May 13 and June 3.
Prosecutors have since filed an appeal with the New Mexico Supreme Court objecting to the judge's ruling that footage of Trevizo entering and exiting the bathroom where the baby was born is inadmissible, as well as her alleged confession to her doctor that she gave birth to the baby.
Prosecutors Appeal Alexee Trevizo Confession Ruling
Deputy District Attorney Ariane Gonzales, who is representing the state of New Mexico in the case, writes in the appeal that HIPPA laws did not apply to the initial conversation Trevizo had with her doctor in which she allegedly confessed to giving birth to the baby.
According to the appeal, Dr. Heather Vaskas said to Trevizo, "We discovered a dead baby in the bathroom." Trevizo then allegedly said, "I'm sorry, it came out of me, I didn't know what to do," according to the appeal.
The state argues in the appeal that Trevizo "was not under arrest or restraint when she made that admission" and that "the exchange between [Trevizo] and the physician did not rise to the level of police interrogation."
Trevizo also "waived any privilege when she made statements in the presence of her mother and law enforcement agents," argues the state.
In objecting to the judge's decision to toss out the video of Trevizo as she enters and exits the bathroom both before and after giving birth, the state argues that "video of the hallway was of a public place accessible in the hospital to others, without any patient-physician privilege."
The Supreme Court has not yet set a date for hearing this appeal, but oral arguments are typically heard during the first two weeks of the month in January, March, May, July, September and November.
If the Supreme Court sides with prosecutors then a new trial date would likely be set in the case, but if the initial order from the judge stands in this case it is unlikely that prosecutors would have enough evidence to try Trevizo for murder.
Alexee Trevizo Hospital Visit
Trevizo arrived at Artesia General Hospital complaining of severe back pain in the early morning hours of Jan. 27, 2023.
Tests were run by hospital staff, who came to discover that Trevizo was pregnant, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by Inside Edition Digital.
Those results had allegedly not yet been shared with Trevizo when she told a nurse she had to use the bathroom.
A timeline of that bathroom trip is included in the arrest affidavit, which states that Trevizo first entered the bathroom at 1:39 a.m. and remained there for 20 minutes, leaving only when hospital staff threatened to open the door.
Then, as staff started treating Trevizo once again, a member of the cleaning crew was called to the bathroom.
"A housekeeper was called to clean the large amount of blood inside the restroom. The housekeeper cleaned up the blood first and then went to take the trash can bag out of the trash can and found it to be much heavier than usual," reads the arrest affidavit. "The housekeeper said she looked through the trash can and found a tied-up trash can bag underneath other trash."
The housekeeper then saw what she thought was a baby and immediately called in two nurses, according to the affidavit.
Once informed of this information by Dr. Vaskas, Trevizo said that she gave birth to the child but insisted the baby had been stillborn, according to the appeal.
Trevizo was allowed to go home and continue with her school year until the autopsy report came back stating that the child had air in his lungs and that there was evidence of a hemorrhage consistent with hypoxia.
According to prosecutors, that finding is inconsistent with the claim Trevizo allegedly made to hospital staff when she said the baby was not breathing.
She was arrested on May 10 and charged with first-degree murder and tampering with evidence. Trevizo entered a plea of not guilty to both charges.
Prosecutors fought against pretrial release, but the judge allowed it. Trevizo attended prom and had planned to walk in her high school graduation while awaiting trial for murder, but ultimately her school asked that she not attend the ceremony.
The judge also allowed her to attend college this past year, where some students started a petition demanding she be banned from campus.
Inside Edition Digital reached out to Trevizo's attorney for comment but has not heard back.
Trevizo's lawyer previously told Inside Edition Digital that she is innocent of all crimes and that she didn't realize she was pregnant until she started giving birth in the hospital on the morning of January 27.
