Man killed ex and left baby on side of road on day of paternity test, AZ officials say
A couple driving in Arizona in 2018 made a startling find.
They spotted a 7-month-old sitting alone in a car seat on the side of the road, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office said in a Feb. 7 news release.
There were several items with the baby, including a woman’s ID, prosecutors said. It belonged to the baby’s mother, Jasmine Dunbar.
At the time, her charred body lay in a Phoenix field about 3 miles away, according to prosecutors.
Now, her ex-boyfriend, 27-year-old Antwaun Ware, has been sentenced to life in prison in her death, prosecutors said.
“This defendant’s callous actions have no place in our community,” County Attorney Rachel Mitchell said in the release.
After the couple found Dunbar’s baby in March 2018, Phoenix detectives tracked down her family, prosecutors said.
The family told detectives that the day the baby was found, “Ware was on his way with Ms. Dunbar to take a paternity test,” prosecutors said.
But the 21-year-old “was never seen or heard from again,” police said in an arrest report, McClatchy News previously reported.
“Where is my daughter?” Tonya Smith, Dunbar’s mother, told KPNX after the baby was found. “She wouldn’t leave her baby. Where is she?”
After his arrest, Ware told police he got into a physical fight with Dunbar and left her in a field, according to his arrest report, McClatchy News reported.
But, with her infant still in the backseat of the car, he “panicked,” according to the police report. He left the baby on the side of the road “because he saw people nearby and believed they would find her and take care of her.”
Ware told detectives he then went back to the field and set Dunbar’s body on fire, police said.
“I hate that I couldn’t be there to protect her, cause that’s what every mother wants to do is protect their child,” Smith told FOX 10 Phoenix. “And I couldn’t be there to do that. That’s a regret I’ll have to carry on.”
Ware, who pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and endangerment, was sentenced to natural life in prison, according to prosecutors.
“He took away life. He took love. He snatched it, like it belonged to him,” Smith told FOX 10 Phoenix. “Jasmine meant the world to me. She was my daughter. She was beautiful.”
