GREENVILLE, S.C. – Family of a Greenville woman charged with attempted murder and neglect for dumping her hours old newborn in a trash can last year says she should not be in jail.
It’s been almost a year since Sharon Ferguson was arrested and given a $125,000 dollar bond. A man found her child wrapped in a blanket and inside a plastic bag in a trash can in Greenville’s Nicholtown community last April.
Her family says her charges and the high bond is outrageous because Ferguson has a history of mental illness. They say she should be in a mental health facility that can help her with her illness instead of a jail cell.
Advocate Traci Fant is the spokesperson for the family. Tuesday, she joined the family in saying more needed to be done to help the mentally ill.
“She represents the hundreds of thousands of mentally ill patients in the prison system today. Prison isn’t set up to facilitate the mentally ill. They put them in a box and they leave them there to fend for themselves. We’re asking and we continue to ask that mental illness is taken into consideration when things like this happen,” said Fant.
A judge ordered a mental health evaluation for Ferguson this past December.
Ferguson’s aunt said they communicate with Ferguson regularly though letters and said she is well, though she doesn’t understand what is happening. She added Ferguson’s nearly one-year-old son is doing well in the care of family.
