The boy survived after a passerby heard him crying, while his mother now awaits sentencing in Washoe County District Court.
SUN VALLEY, Nev. — The sound of a newborn crying from an apartment complex dumpster led a passerby to climb inside and pull the baby to safety, an intervention that authorities say saved the child’s life and began a case that has now ended with his mother pleading no contest to attempted murder.
More than a year after that rescue, Taylour Sierra Dickinson is awaiting sentencing rather than preparing for the jury trial once scheduled in the case. Dickinson entered the no-contest plea July 29 in Washoe County District Court. Prosecutors dismissed a separate child abuse, neglect or endangerment count under the agreement. She is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 7 and faces a Nevada prison term of two to 20 years on the attempted-murder conviction. The plea marks the legal conclusion of the prosecution phase, but the case began not in a courtroom but with an unidentified citizen noticing the baby’s cries on July 5, 2025.
Authorities said the newborn was found in a garbage bag inside a dumpster at an apartment complex in Sun Valley, a community north of Reno. The passerby entered the container and removed the infant before emergency crews arrived. The child was taken to Renown Regional Medical Center for treatment. Two days later, when announcing Dickinson’s arrest, the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office said the boy was healthy and doing well. Officials have continued to protect the child’s identity, and the public updates reviewed for this story do not provide later details about his placement or long-term care.
Sheriff Darin Balaam placed unusual emphasis on the rescue when his office announced the arrest. He called the citizen who intervened a hero and said that person’s actions had saved the baby’s life. The sheriff also credited detectives for identifying and arresting a suspect in a case he said had deeply affected the office and community. The statement framed the baby’s survival as the defining immediate outcome of the July 5 emergency. Without the passerby’s intervention, officials indicated, the case could have had a very different result.
The investigation then worked backward from the discovery of the child. Detectives identified Dickinson, who was 28 at the time, and arrested her July 7 on attempted murder and child-abuse-related allegations. Prosecutors formally filed those charges two days later. At an early bail hearing, a detective described evidence and statements that investigators said connected Dickinson to the birth and abandonment. Prosecutors sought a $1 million cash-only bail, and the judge granted the request. The court also heard arguments about restrictions involving contact with children and other release conditions as the criminal case moved forward.
Detective Claire Hoops-Adams testified that investigators believed Dickinson delivered the child during the early morning hours of July 5. Authorities put the birth at about 2:30 a.m. and said the baby was placed in the dumpster roughly an hour later. Dickinson told investigators that she had not known she was pregnant before going into labor, according to accounts of the hearing. She said she gave birth in a bathroom, used a towel to retrieve and wrap the infant and then put the child inside a garbage bag. Investigators said surveillance evidence also helped establish the sequence of events outside the apartment.
What Dickinson understood and intended during those minutes became central to the criminal case. Authorities said her statements changed during questioning. She first gave an account suggesting that she had not believed she was disposing of an infant but later acknowledged knowing that a baby had been born. She told investigators she had panicked and described putting the child in the dumpster as what she saw as her “best option.” She also said she hoped that someone passing by would find the newborn. That claimed expectation did not prevent prosecutors from pursuing an attempted-murder charge.
Dickinson also told investigators that she did not want more children and that her family was struggling financially. Authorities said she described the household as living paycheck to paycheck. Those statements provided investigators with Dickinson’s own account of the circumstances surrounding the abandonment, but prosecutors did not have to prove those financial concerns as a separate offense. The attempted-murder case turned on the alleged conduct and required criminal intent. Because Dickinson eventually entered a no-contest plea, a jury will not be asked to determine which portions of the competing accounts it finds credible.
The abandoned infant’s survival distinguishes the 2025 case from another episode prosecutors discussed while seeking high bail. The district attorney’s office said Dickinson had reported a 2023 miscarriage and had placed a baby near or in a dumpster at a different apartment complex. That child did not survive, according to testimony reported from the hearing. Prosecutors were careful to explain that Dickinson was never charged in that earlier matter. The investigating agency did not submit a prosecutable case to the district attorney at the time because of the available facts, circumstances and evidence. The earlier incident therefore remains separate from the conviction now before the court.
While investigators built the criminal case, officials repeatedly pointed to a different path available under Nevada law for parents who believe they cannot care for a newborn. Nevada’s safe-haven provisions apply to children who are or appear to be no more than 30 days old and are voluntarily delivered to an emergency-service provider by a parent who does not intend to return for the child. Covered providers include hospitals, law enforcement agencies and public firefighting agencies. The statute directs those providers to take immediate possession of the newborn and protect the child’s physical health and safety.
The legal surrender system is also designed to reduce barriers that could discourage a parent in crisis from using it. In qualifying circumstances, a parent is not required to disclose identifying information and may leave after surrendering the child, unless there is independent reason to believe the newborn has been abused or neglected. The Washoe County Sheriff’s Office highlighted the law immediately after Dickinson’s arrest, and the district attorney’s office repeated the reminder after formal charges were filed. Officials did not present the statute as an explanation for Dickinson’s conduct; they cited it as an existing alternative to leaving an infant unattended.
The case moved much more slowly after the dramatic first days. Dickinson initially contested the charges and eventually pleaded not guilty, putting the prosecution on track for an August 2026 trial. That timetable changed at the July 29 plea hearing. By accepting a no-contest resolution to attempted murder, Dickinson allowed a conviction to be entered without expressly admitting guilt in the same way a traditional guilty plea would. In exchange, prosecutors dismissed the remaining child-abuse count. The agreement shifted the court’s task away from deciding criminal liability and toward deciding punishment.
Nevada law provides the framework for that next decision. Attempting to commit a category A felony is punishable as a category B felony with a minimum term of at least two years and a maximum of no more than 20 years in state prison. That establishes the outer range but does not reveal what sentence Dickinson will actually receive. The public sources reviewed for this report do not establish a final recommendation from prosecutors or the defense, and the judge has not yet imposed a term. Those questions remain for the October hearing.
The legal outcome has now advanced further than public information about the child at the center of the case. Authorities reported after the rescue that the newborn was healthy and doing well, but officials limited additional disclosure because he is a minor. His name has not been released in the reports reviewed for this story. The citizen who heard his cries also has not become the public focus of the prosecution, even though the sheriff’s office credited that intervention with turning an alleged abandonment into a rescue.
The judge’s decision will determine the prison term on the attempted-murder conviction. Dickinson remains set for sentencing Oct. 7, 2026, in Washoe County District Court. For the child, however, the case’s decisive moment came much earlier: when someone near a Sun Valley dumpster heard a sound, investigated it and found the newborn alive.
Author note: Last updated August 30, 2026.