Woman convicted of abandoning baby on Monterey County road 30 years ago, sentenced to 13 years

A Watsonville woman received her sentencing after being convicted in a 30 year old cold case.

On Wednesday, Pamela Ferreyra, 61, was sentenced to 13 years and four months for one count of voluntary manslaughter and one count of felony child abuse for the December 1994 death of her infant son, according to a press release by the District Attorney’s Office.

Back in 1994, on Dec. 3 the partial remains of a two to three day old boy were found off Garin Road in Prunedale. An autopsy showed the baby had been born alive, outside of a hospital, and that he had not been fed for about 24 hours prior to his death. The cause of death could not be determined.

There was never a missing person’s report filed, and the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office were unable to get any leads.

In 2020, the county spearheaded the Cold Case Task Force to start investigating cases like the unsolved 1994 case. The release states DNA samples from Baby John Doe, or “Baby Garin” as Monterey County Sheriff’s deputies referred to him as during the 2024 investigation, were taken and showed Ferreyra as the child’s mother.

When she was interviewed, Ferreyra told investigators that she hid her pregnancy from everyone around her, including her husband and children. After he was born she said she dressed him, put him in her car and drove him to a remote place in Prunedale, where she left him and she never returned or looked into what happened.