FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (Court TV) — Prosecutors are asking a judge to hold a couple without bond after they allegedly killed their infant and then lied about her existence.
Alejandro Leon and Samantha Feliz (Broward County Sheriff’s Office)
Samantha Feliz, 20, and Alejandro Leon Jr., 21, face charges including aggravated manslaughter of a child, failure to report a death and giving false information to law enforcement after their infant died under suspicious circumstances. Feliz and Leon were arrested in North Carolina and extradited to Florida this week to face charges.
In documents asking a judge to keep the defendants in custody, prosecutors said that Feliz gave birth to the couple’s child on Dec. 6, 2024. The birth was at the couple’s home and there were no medical records or birth certificate documenting the event, investigators said.
Things with the family seemed normal at first, detectives said in an affidavit reviewed by Court TV: Feliz shared photos of the child and the couple took the baby out with friends and family. Feliz’s brother told investigators that he last saw the child alive in early February 2025 and that the child’s parents had been smoking marijuana around her.
In March 2025, when Feliz’s older sister asked where the child was, Feliz allegedly responded, “What baby? There is no baby.” Since then, investigators said, “Feliz has claimed that there was never a baby, that the baby was a hoax, and that she was scamming everyone for money.”
A photo shows Alejandro Leon and Samantha Feliz (WPEC)
Police began investigating in July 2025 after Feliz’s family made repeated calls expressing concern for the child’s welfare. They quickly determined that the couple had been evicted from their home in Hollywood, Florida, on Feb. 25 and had been living in a storage unit since then. When officers served a search warrant at the storage facility, they found baby clothing, a pregnancy test, a black handgun, a towel that appeared to have bloodstains on it, notebooks referencing a gender reveal and baby shower, and electronics. Mattresses and a box spring were stacked in the center of the storage unit with a plastic bottle of liquid believed to be urine.
While Feliz and Leon maintained in conversations with family and police that there was no infant, photos on a laptop recovered from the storage unit contradicted their claims, authorities said. On the device, investigators found multiple photos showing the defendants holding, feeding and sleeping with a baby. “The evidence further established that the victim’s health was clearly declining over a period of time, as evidenced by the apparent change in her facial features and skin tone,” detectives wrote. “In the final photo from January 5, 2025, the victim is depicted without any signs of life.”
DNA testing on baby clothes found in the storage unit confirmed they likely belonged to the biological child of both defendants.
Both Leon and Feliz are expected in court on Thursday for a pretrial detention hearing. In their motion urging a judge to hold Feliz without bond, prosecutors noted her lengthy criminal history, which includes arrests for larceny, trespassing, fraud and burglary. When she was arrested, she was out on bond for drug charges in North Carolina.
