Police searching for new mum Charlotte Bevan who went missing with her four-day-old baby daughter have found her body in the Avon Gorge.
Update:
Charlotte, 30, was caught on CCTV walking out of Bristol Maternity Hospital carrying Zaani Tiana at 9pm on Tuesday (December 2).
The mum was wearing thin hospital slippers and no coat, with her newborn daughter wrapped in just a blanket, as she calmly walked off the postnatal ward, past several nurses and out of the hospital.
Last night (Wednesday), police found a woman's body in the Avon Gorge near the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol, a mile and a half from where Charlotte went missing.
Today (Thursday), the body was formally identified as Charlotte, and the body of a newborn baby was also discovered.
The baby has not yet been identified, but police believe it to be Zaani Tiana.
The new mother's disappearance on Tuesday night sparked a widespread police search as her worried mother and boyfriend pleaded with her to come home.
Pascal Malbrouck, 37, Charlotte's boyfriend and Zaani's dad, had issued a plea for her to 'please come back' and spoke of how they were excited to be new parents.
Charlotte vanished between Pascal leaving her bedside at 8.30pm and nurses carrying out a regular check just after 9pm.
Detectives are trying to piece to together what caused her to pick up her new baby and walk out of hospital, saying she was 'confused and worried'.
It is believed Chalotte may have stopped taking medication for depression so that she could breastfeed Zaani. She is also understood to have been treated for schizophrenia.
Just hours before she went missing, Charlotte posted a self-help video on her Facebook page called Get Through Positive And Negative Thinking Rough Patches.
But earlier this month she had posted happy pictures of herself with her baby bump on the social networking site, where she also described herself as a 'free spirit'.
Describing herself, she wrote: "I am free open-minded individual I love music, art, dancing and making clothes.
"I'm a free spirit open minded and individual I appreciate people for who they are kind or nasty they all need love."
A University Hospitals Bristol spokesman said the new mum had been due to be discharged on Wednesday, adding: "Charlotte was recovering from the birth of her baby, and there were no indications that she was planning to self-discharge.
"When staff went to check on her at 21.05 they found Charlotte and her baby missing and immediately sounded the alarm."
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