ROME (September 10, 2009)--A Houston-area man is claiming to be the father of a two-day-old boy who was abandoned in a church several weeks ago in Florence, police in Italy say.

Florentine police chief Giampaolo Monastra said police received an e-mail on Aug. 20 from a man who wrote that he believed his girlfriend have given birth while visiting Italy and left the newborn in the church, where a nun found the child July 29.

Monastra said the Texas man told police that when his girlfriend came back from Italy no longer pregnant, she told him that the baby had died.

Monastra says police in the Houston suburb of Sugar Land are investigating.