Mom ditches 6-month-old at Jiffy Lube, says ‘You can just have her,’ then returns with a knife
Thankfully, the baby was in mostly good health.
All 50 U.S. states have Safe Haven laws, which allow parents of newborns to surrender the baby at designated safe locations, like hospitals or fire stations, without prosecution. These laws are designed to allow parents in crisis to leave a baby somewhere it can receive immediate care, a much better alternative to simply abandoning it somewhere. However, Jiffy Lube is not one of these designated safe places.
That didn’t stop a Georgia mother from allegedly walking into one of these quick oil change locations with her six-month-old daughter on October 24, 2026, and trying to leave her in the care of strangers, before returning armed with a knife. Now, authorities have charged Laraven Davis with the misdemeanors of reckless conduct and abandonment of a child, though no reason for that abandonment has been released.
Jiffy Lube employees found signs of neglect on the baby
According to Law & Crime and Fox 5, Assistant Manager Jarayya Mayes had just begun her shift when she saw a woman come in, pushing a baby in a stroller.
Mayes told Fox 5 that after she noticed the woman, “She came up to me and my coworker, Elijah, with a stroller. And she was like, hey, doesn’t my baby look so cute? Is my baby so cute? We were like, yeah, babies adorable. And she was. She was absolutely adorable.”
Though that was a bit unusual, alarm bells began to ring for Mayes when Davis asked the two Jiffy Lube employees to watch her child, saying she had stuff to do. While asking someone to watch your baby for only a moment isn’t unusual, as Mayes reportedly explained, “She just kept saying, the paperwork is in the bag. You guys can just have her if I don’t make it back. Once she said that, red flags immediately.”
Davis then walked out of the building, leaving the baby with the two. The employees checked the little girl, only to find signs of neglect like rashes on her body and a soaked diaper, so they immediately called 911 and reported the incident.
Davis soon returned for her child
Mayes was still on the phone with the 911 operator roughly 15 minutes later, when Davis returned to the Jiffy Lube. This time, Davis was allegedly armed with a knife and demanded her child be given back to her. She reportedly said, “Some stuff just went down. I gotta go.”
The 911 dispatcher told the Jiffy Lube employees not to give Davis the baby and to wait for the police to arrive. When authorities arrived, they arrested Davis. The baby was taken to a hospital for a medical evaluation before reportedly being placed in the care of the Division of Family and Children.
While the number of children abandoned each year in the U.S. is unknown, in 2024, approximately 364,327 children suffered neglect. In fact, of all the types of abuse children are subjected to, neglect is the most common, with 79.3% of abuse cases involving it (either on its own or in conjunction with other forms of abuse).
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