Sometimes the California justice system makes no sense to me. This case is definitely one of those times. It all began back in 2009 when a man collecting cans from a dumpster in Union City came across the body of an infant.
An infant found dead in a trash bin at a Union City apartment complex was a girl with her umbilical cord still attached, police said Tuesday.
A recycler rummaging for cans and bottles at the Parkside apartment complex at 1501 Decoto Road discovered the infant in a bag about 8:40 p.m. Monday.
California has a law in place called the Safely Surrendered Baby Law which allows mothers to drop off newborn infants at hospitals or fire stations. That law has been in place since 2001, long before this happened.
Local police gave the deceased newborn a name and paid to have her buried. They investigated the crime and considered one woman living in the apartment complex with the dumpster a person of interest. She was even interviewed at the time but police didn’t have enough evidence to connect her to the crime. And for a long time that was the end of it. It became a cold case. The police continued to remember the girl every year and paid for a permanent grave marker, confirming my belief that most cops are basically decent people who see some of the very worst things human beings can do to one another.
The police never forgot about the little girl’s case and sixteen years later, they used genetic genealogy to identify the baby’s mother. It was the same woman they’d considered a suspect. She had since moved to Colorado.
According to the Union City Police Department, the girl was found dead at the Parkside Apartments on Decoto Road on May 18, 2009 by a man searching for recyclables.
Police named the girl Matea Esperanza, a name meaning “Gift from God” in Hebrew and “Hope” in Spanish.
During the lengthy investigation, detectives said they were able to develop leads with what they described as “advanced” DNA analysis of evidence collected in 2009. Police said further DNA comparison led to 46-year-old Angela Onduto of Denver, who was identified as a person of interest during the early stages of the investigation.
Onduto was eventually extradited back to California to face a murder charge. And this is where things began to go badly as the California justice system inevitably seemed to side with the criminal rather than the victim.
Onduto’s lawyer wrote in a motion how Onduto began “drinking heavily” in 2009, after a divorce, and fell into a state of “denial and avoidance” after an unintended pregnancy.
“She eventually went into labor in her apartment in Union City and labored alone, for hours, overnight in her bathroom,” the motion says. “Ms. Onduto is alleged to have drowned the infant immediately after its birth. She then placed the deceased infant into the dumpster of her apartment complex.”…
In their opposition motion, prosecutors said Onduto admitted to keeping a subsequent pregnancy from her spouse, in 2017, and leaving that newborn outside of an East Bay fire station. In 2009, she “had nine months to seek out alternative solutions, including abortion, adoption, or safely surrendering the infant at a fire station,” but “chose to drown and dispose of the infant instead,” minutes after giving birth the prosecution motion says.
“The defendant admitted to hearing the infant making noise and moving around prior to the drowning. The defendant’s roommate was sleeping in the living room and apparently never woke during the incident. The defendant put her dead baby in a plastic bag and dumped her in the apartment dumpster,” the motion says. “Baby Jane Doe still had the umbilical cord attached. The defendant murdered the most vulnerable human being.”
That was last October. As often seems to happen in California, the case dragged on in slow motion until the public defender worked out a sweetheart deal for his murdering client. The other five charges were dropped and the murder charge was downgraded to voluntary manslaughter.
A woman charged with murder for allegedly drowning her newborn baby in a bathtub in Union City in 2009 has taken a plea deal, according to court records.
Angela Onduto, 47, pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter at an April 24 hearing, records show. She was originally charged with murder and five other felonies, including harming a vulnerable victim.
In fact, Onduto didn’t even have to admit guilt. She pleaded no contest. Her sentence for the downgraded crime was part of the plea deal but didn’t become official until this month.
A woman who killed her baby and left the newborn’s body in a Bay Area apartment complex dumpster has been sentenced to six years in a state prison…
In April, Onduto, now 47, pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter. A plea of no contest means the defendant does not admit guilt but will accept the punishment for the crime. Last week, a judge sentenced Onduto to six years in state prison.
Court records show Onduto has been credited with 365 days already served, plus an additional 54 days for good conduct while in custody. She’s currently being held at the Santa Rita Jail before being transferred to the women’s prison in Chowchilla.
Onduto was 30 years old when she drowned her own child, tossing the baby’s body in a dumpster, lied to police and then carried on for 16 years as if nothing had happened. Over the prosecutor’s objections, the judge granted Onduto bail and then she eventually got a plea deal with no formal admission of guilt and just six years behind bars.
In any case, six years for murdering an infant seems like a really soft punishment, even in lefty California. And that’s assuming she doesn’t get released early after serving half her sentence, which is the norm in California. The justice system here cares too much about the criminals and far too little about the victims.
UPDATE: Angela Beth Onduto, 46, in custody w/@DenverSheriff, awaiting extradition to CA after being charged by @AlamedaCountyDA w/murder for drowning her newborn daughter & dumping her in apt complex trash bin near Decoto & Alvarado-Niles in 2009, per @UnionCityPD_CA pic.twitter.com/PtbDhmxYPr
— Henry K. Lee (@henrykleeKTVU) July 4, 2025
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