Santa Cruz County woman pleads guilty to abandoning newborn in 1994

A Watsonville woman pleaded guilty in the 1994 death of her newborn son, putting an end to a 30-year-old cold case.

Pamela Ferreyra, 61, admitted to one count of voluntary manslaughter and one count of felony child abuse causing great bodily injury. She is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 18, and faces 13 years and four months in state prison.

The case began on Dec. 3, 1994, when the partial remains of an infant, only two or three days old, were found off Garin Road in Prunedale. An autopsy showed the baby was born alive, likely not inside a hospital, and had not been fed for about 24 hours before his death. No missing persons report was filed at the time, and investigators with the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office were unable to identify the child’s parents.

The District Attorney’s Office Cold Case Task Force, launched in 2020, submitted DNA from the infant’s remains for further testing. In 2024, new analysis identified Ferreyra as the baby’s mother.

During an interview, Ferreyra told investigators she concealed her pregnancy from her family, gave birth at home, dressed the baby, placed him in her car and left him in a remote area of Prunedale. She never returned to the site or attempted to find out what happened to him.

Ferreyra’s case marks the 10th conviction connected to a cold-case homicide since the task force was established.

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