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A procession of 10 cars, headed by a hearse, slowly wound through Resurrection Cemetery in Clinton on Monday and stopped in front of a field dotted with flower bouquets and balloons of SpongeBob Square Pants and Dora the Explorer.
Wearing police badges around their necks, 10 men got out of the cars and solemnly watched the hearse driver open the back of the vehicle and cradle in his arms a white, 2-foot-long coffin.
The men — investigators in Prince George's County Police's homicide unit—were there to pay tribute to the very short life of Maria Del Pilar, the hours-old infant abandoned by her mother and found in a Langley Park field Oct. 12.
The investigators named the baby after the patron saint of Zaragoza, Spain, whose day of celebration is the same day the baby was born, county police spokesman Andrew Ellis said.
"They wanted the child to have the respect of at least having a name," he said.
Del Pilar is the third such infant found abandoned and left unclaimed by family members whom Prince George's County Police's homicide unit has held a funeral service for. The first was for a baby found in Oxon Hill in 2004, and the second was for an infant found in Riverdale in 2006. Del Pilar was buried alongside the two other infants in the children's section of the cemetery.
Del Pilar was found in a plastic bag around noon on Oct. 12 by workers clearing a field on the 6300 block of New Hampshire Avenue. She had been outside for nearly seven hours and was taken to a local hospital, where she died from exposure to the elements, county police spokesman Henry Tippett said.
The Medical Examiner's Office ruled her death a homicide, and on Oct. 16, county police arrested the mother, 25-year-old Wendy Y. Villatoro of the 6200 block of Eastern Avenue in Takoma Park. Villatoro had confessed to giving birth to the baby girl and then leaving her in the field. Police have said Villatoro may have abandoned the baby due to pressures with her male partner over the strain of the baby's impending arrival.
A grand jury indicted Villatoro Nov. 6 on charges of first-degree murder and first-degree child abuse. If convicted, she could serve life in prison without parole or receive the death penalty. Villatoro's bond is set at $300,000 and she will have the chance to enter a plea at her Nov. 26 arraignment. Her trial begins on April 20.
The Maryland Safe Haven Law, enacted in 2002, allows for mothers to abandon their newborns in the care of a responsible adult, at a police station or hospital without fear of prosecution. Villatoro seems to have been unaware of Maryland's Safe Haven Law, Tippett said.
No family members claimed Del Pilar's body, and the only people in attendance at the short funeral service were the department's chaplain, Steve Rhoads, and 10 officers.
Normally such unclaimed bodies become property of the state. The police department claimed the body and buried it using a donated plot of land, casket and flowers, an ad-hoc volunteer effort by homicide detectives.
"These investigators see so much violence and death," Maj. Daniel Dusseau said. "This is an opportunity have some closure."
The funeral service also gives the child the dignity of a proper burial, Ellis added.
"We want people to know the value of this child's life and the fact that she was someone," he said.
This was the third such funeral Detective Thomas Hollwell, a 19-year veteran of the force, has attended. He said cases involving children or infants are especially emotionally taxing, and he attended the service to support his fellow investigators.
"Just to see a child or infant cast aside like that, you have to really feel for that abandonment," he said. "All of us have kids. You can only imagine one of your own" when investigating these cases, he added.
The department's chaplain recited a prayer and a Bible verse during the short ceremony and spoke on the value of honoring a life.
The detectives, unable to reflect much on the life Del Pilar led, could only reflect on the life she could have lived.
E-mail Elahe Izadi at eizadi@gazette.net.
