MANSFIELD, Ohio – A young woman who placed the remains of her infant in the trunk of her vehicle for approximately six months was found delinquent in the charge of abuse of a corpse, a fifth-degree felony.
Visibly shaking and crying in Richland County Juvenile Court on Wednesday afternoon, the 20-year-old was sentenced to 90 days in the court’s juvenile detention facility. Her status as a juvenile within the court protects her identity.
“The court concludes that fundamental decency required that you treat your baby’s remains with the care and respect that a civilized society demands,” said Judge Ron Spon during his sentencing. “For this court to not hold you accountable for your actions in some concrete and meaningful way would be to denigrate the value of human life and the personhood and memory of your deceased child.”
The sentencing stems from a July 23, 2013 incident when the decomposed body of a female infant was found in the trunk of the woman’s vehicle at Broadway Automotive & Exhaust in Shelby. During an interview with Shelby Police’s now-Chief Lance Combs, the woman admitted to giving birth to the baby at her home in late January or early February of 2013.
The woman was 17 at the time of the incident, and is now 20 after celebrating a birthday in early January.
Spon said the woman is not a continuing or past threat to the community and has no prior record. During sentencing, the judge noted she has struggled emotionally.
“What looms large in my own mind is what cries out concerning the very corpse of the child, and that is in life or in death, give me dignity and give me respect, and she did not do that,” he said.
An audible whimper escaped from the woman when Spon announced she would be committed into the legal custody of the Ohio Department of Youth Services for an indeterminate period of time of six months to age 21, less than one year from now. However, instead of sending her to the Ohio Department of Youth Services, Spon determined she would serve her 90-day sentence in the Richland County juvenile detention facility.
“I did think seriously about keeping you incarcerated for one day per every day you had the corpse of your baby hidden,” Spon said.
The woman was also placed on community control until age 21, with intensive probation that requires continued counseling and the completion of 100 hours of volunteer charity work. Spon recommended the woman continue her work with elderly people in nursing homes, or perhaps in a nursery.
The woman was given the opportunity to address the court before sentencing, at which point she stood and looked trembling at her attorney for guidance.
“I’m so scared,” she managed to say.
When asked what she regretted about the incident, she responded, “Not handling it the right way.”
Spon acknowledged her feelings of fear and conflict, but noted he was puzzled about the decision to place the baby’s remains in the trunk of her car.
“When you had the child, why didn’t you think more about the child than about yourself?” he asked.
“Because it didn’t make any movement or sound,” the woman replied.
The woman’s statement was consistent in her previous testimony that the baby was stillborn at the time of its birth. This fact was never proven due to the length of time between the birth of the baby and its discovery in the trunk of the vehicle.
According to an autopsy report completed by Dr. Lisa Kohler, Summit County’s Chief Medical Examiner, the question of whether the infant was the product of a live birth versus stillbirth could not be determined. Bone length and dental maturation confirmed the child was a full-term female infant.
“No anatomic cause of death could be identified,” Kohler reported. “The degree of decomposition limits the extent of evaluation that can be performed.”
On Dec. 21, 2015, the woman entered an admission to abuse of a corpse and an amended charge of attempted tampering with evidence, a fourth-degree felony. She was only adjudicated on the abuse of a corpse charge after the court dismissed on its own motion the attempted tampering with evidence charge.
The dismissal comes on the basis that on Dec. 30, 2015 – mere days after the woman admitted to the charge – the Ohio Supreme Court unanimously ruled that in order to convict a tampering with evidence charge a person must be proven to have personal knowledge that an official proceeding or investigation would be instituted. Spon decided there was no evidence to support that charge in this case.
“As the court sees it there is not evidence to indicate that at the exact moment she placed the remains of the child in the trunk of the vehicle, she had personal, actual knowledge that a formal proceeding or investigation was about to be instituted or would likely to be instituted,” Spon said.
Defense attorney Robert Whitney described the tremendous toll the woman has suffered throughout these events.
“She’s lived through these events in spite of threats made to her. She’s suffered mentally and has been hospitalized because of that,” Whitney said. “She’s completed counseling and has strived to show she is a decent human being.”
Whitney also pointed there was little to no change in the woman’s size throughout her pregnancy, and that she reported her menstrual cycle continued uninterrupted.
“If in fact she knew she was pregnant, with young people today it would be a hard thing to keep secret,” said Whitney. “If she knew and kept it a secret, nobody else knew either.”
However, the prosecution argued the woman was “very good” at keeping secrets due to the fact she concealed the corpse of the infant in her trunk for approximately six months.
“I’ve heard a lot of discussion of what she has suffered through and what she has gone through, however in this case the victim was her child and what that child potentially suffered through,” said Assistant Prosecutor Melissa Angst. “Even today there is no recognition this was her baby; she still refers to the baby as ‘it.’”
Spon noted this case was one of the most difficult he has tried in 24 years on the bench. He told the woman he had no doubt she has thought about what she could and should have done, and what she didn’t do in response to this incident.
“This does not mean you have to forever go through life with torment, but there is a process here that you need to come to grips with, and that is while you are important, others are important as well,” Spon said.
“Somehow you will find a way to work through this whole process and will be able to come to terms with your life in a way that you may move ahead – scarred yes, but destroyed, no – and in a way that you can have a bright future and will be a much wiser, much more responsible human being.”
