Woman arrested after newborn baby found decapitated and dismembered in rubbish bin

POLICE have arrested a woman suspected of decapitating her new-born baby and dumping the remains in a rubbish bin.

Details of the sickening crime first emerged last week when detectives launched an urgent appeal to find the mother.

Civil Guard officers in Madrid on Tuesday arrested an immigrant who was born in Ecuador.

Reports on Tuesday afternoon said police were searching her house in the working-class Madrid neighbourhood of Vallecas.

The suspect, who has been taken into custody, has not been named but has been described locally as a married woman with children.

The girl's remains were found in several plastic bags in a recycling centre in Madrid back in December, but cops only went public with the investigation last week.

A worker made the traumatising discovery at a garbage plant in Loeches, east of Madrid.

Doctors confirmed the little girl was born alive and was just five days old when she was mutilated and abandoned.

Tests revealed she had been born alive and decapitated with a knife before her body parts were stuffed into garbage bags.

Local cops launched "Operation Natal" in a bid to "get justice" for the dead infant.

They made a plea for help identifying a woman they estimated to be aged around 40 who had been pregnant during the last months of last year.

A police spokesman said last week: “'From the investigations carried out so far, it has been possible to determine that the remains would correspond to a female baby and that she was born alive.

“There are indications that would point to her death being of a violent nature.

“We are seeking the public’s help in clarifying this criminal act and asking anyone who could have any information of interest to contact us.”

Detectives were already working on the theory the newborn baby could have been of Latin American origin.

They believe her remains ended up in the Loeches plant after being thrown into a container in the Vallecas neighbourhood close to the M-30 motorway.

A specialist sniffer dog was instrumental in allowing cops to trace where the rubbish came from.

Dylan, a K-9 agent from the Central Cynological Service specialised in detecting biological remains, was brought in to search the piles of rubbish.

He sniffed out several bags containing remains of the newborn.

The agents figured out where that batch of rubbish originated from and concluded that it had arrived at the Loeches plant in several bags that were thrown away in the evening of December 12.