Couple Charged With Trying to Sell 3-Month-Old

A man and woman were arrested in West Virginia last week on charges that they tried to sell the woman's baby on May 28, the AP reports. Ashley N. Harmon, 25, and her fiance Jonathan Isaac Lucas Flint, 20, allegedly attempted to sell the 3-month-old girl for $500 to $1,000 to a woman who lives about a mile away from them and has known Flint since he was a child, WSAZ reports. When she turned down the offer, police say, the couple asked her to babysit while they went to the store, but they didn't come back. The woman called police for help with the baby, who seemed sick and was shaking; Child Protective Services ultimately took the infant to a hospital, the Register-Herald reports.

The woman says an EMS worker told her the baby might have been suffering from drug withdrawal, and police believe Harmon and Flint were trying to sell the infant in order to get money to buy drugs. They were charged with selling or attempting to sell a child and gross child neglect, both felonies. Authorities say the baby's biological father did not know about the plan to sell her. (More child neglect stories.)