MINNEAPOLIS — A Minnesota woman was sentenced to 32 years in prison after pleading guilty to killing her infant child and attempting to discard his body in a dumpster.
The sentence is an upward departure for Esperanza Harding, according to the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office.
“My thoughts are with Mateo’s family today,” said Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty in a statement.
Harding will get credit for the 366 days she has already served.
According to the charges, MPD officers were called to Children’s Hospital on March 6, 2024 on reports of a missing child. 
RELATED: Charges: MN woman drowned baby, discarded body in dumpster
A criminal complaint filed in the case states that upon arrival at the hospital, officers found then 20-year-old Harding, who claimed her child died of natural causes in the hospital on March 1 of that year. However, the hospital had no record of the child being admitted or dying in the hospital and the medical examiner’s office had no record of the child. 
According to the criminal complaint, Harding allegedly provided the officers with inconsistent information, but officials said she finally went on to admit the child died in a Bloomington Hotel on Feb. 28, 2024. 
The complaint states Harding told the officers that she was trying to take a bath on Feb. 28 when the baby began crying. The crying child upset Harding and she allegedly drowned the boy, before taking a picture of his body in the tub, which was recovered from her phone. 
After the boy’s death, Harding told officers she wrapped up his body, put it in a backpack and threw it in a dumpster, the complaint states.
In a later interview with the Bloomington Police cited in the complaint, Harding claimed that the man she was dating, Edwin Trudeau, didn’t like her child and he wanted her to put the boy up for adoption. She allegedly texted Trudeau throughout the incident, including a message that read, “I’m about to do something bad, Please answer me, He going to no be here much longer.”
Trudeau visited Harding after the boy had been killed but did not call the authorities, according to his separate charging documents. 
Trudeau has pleaded guilty to aiding an offender and will be sentenced in early May, said the attorney’s office.
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