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Unrelated Charges Filed In Landfill Baby Case

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By Joe  Seelig | Highlands Today

Published: December 4, 2007

LAKE PLACID — Highlands County sheriff's detectives arrested a 24-year-old Lake Placid woman Tuesday who they say threw her baby away in a trash bag that has been the subject of a massive search at a county landfill, but the charges were unrelated.

Silvia Zanchez, 24, of Sarasota Street, has been charged with identity theft and unauthorized possession of an identification card, third-degree felonies.

Zanchez is an employee of Lake County Farms in Lake Placid, according to a written statement from sheriff's Maj. Mark Schrader.

She provided a Social Security card and residential alien card to Lake County Farms as identification. Detectives learned that the Social Security number was not hers and that the residential alien card was fraudulent, Schrader wrote.

Zanchez told detectives she purchased both forms of identification from an unknown man about four years ago in California, Schrader wrote. She also told him she is in the United States illegally.

Regarding the search for the infant, charges are expected, Schrader wrote.

Authorities say Zanchez has admitted she had the baby and then discarded it.

A massive search for the baby has been going on since Nov. 26, when authorities learned that Zanchez's trash was picked up and delivered to the landfill.

Cadaver dogs have been combing a 100-by-60-foot area for human remains.

Bedding from the household was found at the landfill Friday, but authorities will not say whether anything incriminating has been retrieved.

As many as 40 people searched the dump from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday.

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