Mother Denies Trying to Sell Baby

Dallas woman says she placed ad to help son get adopted

A Dallas woman accused of trying to sell her baby through a classified ad said in a jailhouse interview Monday that she was trying to find an adoptive family for her son.

Brittany Hill, 26, was arrested Friday on suspicion of child abandonment after apartment managers found the 4-month-old baby alone in her apartment.

A woman had earlier called 911 about the classified ad offering the baby for sale. She told police that she was going to buy the child but got cold feet.

But Hill said Monday that she was not trying to sell her son.

"I know that's illegal," she said. "I'm not stupid -- that's called, like, black-market-something. I've read up about it; I know."

Hill said she posted the ad but just wanted to cover the cost of hiring an attorney to handle the adoption process.

"Look deeper into it instead of just being like, 'OK, that's what it is. She's trying to sell her child -- screw that,' you know. It's not like that," she said.

Hill said she doesn't know much about adoption. She said the attorneys she called to help her told her it would be $600 or $1,200 per hour.

"And the lady that I spoke to about the adoption -- she said she'll pay legal fees ... She say, 'How much do I need to put in my financial account?' I said, 'I guess if you could get close to 4,000.'

The ad titled "Adoption family needed" was placed in PennysaverUSA under "foster care." The ad said in its entirety:

Im in search of an great family for my son. He is four months old and he is african american and hispanic. I can no longer care for him the way he needs to be. We are living in a womens shelter now. Im working with an adoption agency so there is an adoption fee they have set up. I believe its $6,500. Thank you and god bless

When asked if putting an ad on Pennysaver was the best way to find an adoptive family, Hill said she wished she had worded it differently but then said that she thought she had worded the ad correctly.

"If you read it, it looks like it was worded right," she said.

Hill said she cannot afford a good life for her son so she decided to place the ad to help get him adopted. She said she hoped to raise her third child until she ran into financial trouble.

"This time, everything was going great -- I mean, fine -- and then we just hit this loophole where it was just like a bomb went off," she said.

Hill said she has given birth to three boys. Her mother has guardianship of her first child, she said. She said her second son was adopted in 2009 through an adoption agency.

"I will never have any more children," she said. "If I could have had a hysterectomy, I would have done it a long time ago."

A manager at the Shadow Ridge apartment complex went into Hill's apartment on Friday afternoon to try and collect back rent. Police said the manager found the baby alone in his crib with no one else in the apartment and called police.

Hill was arrested when she returned home. She said she was checking her mail.

"I was told by my doctors, my midwives or whatever -- they say, 'Hey if you're feeling depressed or anything like that, if you can't step anywhere inside your house and it still bothering you or something, step outside, take 10, 15 minutes to yourself," she said.

The 4-month-old boy, Eden, is in foster care

"I would love my son back," Hill said. "I miss my son."

Hill is being held in the Dallas County Jail on $50,000 bail.

The FBI is investigating whether Hill tried to sell her son for a profit.

NBC 5's Ray Villeda Ellen Goldberg contributed to this report.

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