By ROBIN SHANNON

Staff Reporter

NEW SARPY – St. Charles deputies have arrested the mother of a newborn baby whose body was found near a dog kennel behind a home in New Sarpy.

Capt. Pat Yoes, public information officer for the St. Charles Sheriff’s Office said Belinda Wells, 24, a resident of the home in the 700 block of E. Hoover Street where the baby was found, was taken into custody February 1, about 24 hours after the baby was discovered.

Yoes said the Sheriff’s Office is also looking for Wells’ boyfriend, 32-year-old Timothy Dennis, who is wanted for questioning.

According to a Sheriff’s Office report, Dennis, another resident of the Hoover Street home, told investigators that he found the baby’s body when he went outside to feed the family dog last Thursday around 4 p.m. A bloody towel was also found near the scene.

Deputies said Dennis was last seen driving a gold 1981 Buick Regal with a half vinyl top. License plate number on the vehicle is OWD218.

The arrest warrant on Wells said she had told someone she had buried the baby in the backyard of the home. When the body was found, the legs of the child were severed from the upper body. Medical examiners do not know whether the baby was alive when the legs were cut off.

Yoes said results of the autopsy report were inconclusive regarding cause of death, but said the baby was not stillborn because air was found in the lungs. Results of a DNA test to determine race and gender of the baby are also pending.

Yoes said the mother was initially charged with first-degree murder in the case. A St. Charles Parish judge upheld the charge in a hearing Monday. Wells is being held without bond at the Nelson Coleman Correctional Center awaiting a March 13 arraignment.