Newborn baby found abandoned inside a handbag

A newborn baby is miraculously 'doing fine' after spending a freezing night outside in Texas wrapped in a towel inside of a pillowcase, inside a handbag. The baby was abandoned Sunday night near a North Texas home as temperatures dropped into the 40s, said local authorities. The baby's identity is still unknown and Corsicana police are appealing to the public for information that could lead to finding the mother.

The infant was discovered by Mihoko and Phillip Brown outside their home when their cat, Stinky, started sniffing around the door near where the handbag was dropped. The Browns live on the corner of a dead-end street off busy State Highway 22.

'I put my ear to the door and heard something, and I barely opened the door and saw the bag,' Phillip Brown told the Corsicana Daily Sun. 'I said, "Somebody's left us a puppy in this bag." Then it started crying and I said, "This is a baby".' Mihoko said she was grateful that the baby had enough energy to cry loud enough for them to find him.

'I was trying to make him quit crying. I just went, kind of swinging and holding him and singing a little bit,' she told NBC. 

Police said the baby's umbilical cord was still attached. 'He's stable and appears he's going to be fine,' Police Chief Randy Bratton said. 'We're very fortunate because it got pretty cold last night. If the baby hadn't been found quickly there's a good chance the baby might not have made it.'

Police suspect the baby's mother may not have known that Texas has a Baby Moses law granting legal immunity to any mother who leaves her infant at a hospital, fire station, or police station.