A 22-year-old woman is being held on $500,000 bail after authorities said she purposefully set her baby on fire on a rural New Jersey road. A neighbor who saw the fire said, "It's disheartening, like a nightmare what I saw out there."
The horrible incident occurred on Friday night around 11 p.m. According to the Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office, Hyphernkemberly Dorvilier used an accelerant to light a newborn baby on fire on Simontown Road in Pemberton, NJ. Davis Joseph, who lives nearby, told NBC 10 that he and his wife saw Dorvilier set the fire:
"She said it was poop," Joseph said. "She said her dog pooped in her car and she was burning the poop on the side of the road."
Joseph told NBC10 he realized moments later however that what was on fire was actually an infant with the umbilical cord still attached.
"My wife heard the baby scream," Joseph said. "And then I slammed the door shut. She tried to run for it. Then I put her to the ground. That's when we saw it was a baby."
He also said that Dorvilier doused the fire with a water bottle and was very "calm."
Joseph said the baby was still breathing when EMS arrived—"We thought, hopefully, it would fight. It was fighting all night"—the baby girl died after being flown to St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children in Philadelphia.
The authorities are investigating the circumstances of the baby's birth. Dorvilier is being held at Burlington County Corrections and Work Release Center.
