Mom ‘strangled or suffocated’ 6 babies
Print Edition
AN American woman accused of killing six babies that she gave birth to over 10 years has told investigators that she either strangled or suffocated the children and then put them inside boxes in the garage of her home in the western state of Utah.
According to a probable cause statement released by police Monday, Megan Huntsman said that between 1996 and 2006, she gave birth to at least seven babies and that all but one of them were born alive.
Huntsman, 39, said she killed them immediately after they were born and put their bodies inside the boxes. The statement said each baby was wrapped in either a towel or a shirt and placed in a plastic bag.
Huntsman is being held on US$6 million bail — US$1 million for each baby she’s accused of killing. It wasn’t immediately clear if she had an attorney.
Huntsman was arrested on Sunday on six counts of murder after police found the infants’ tiny bodies in her former home in Pleasant Grove, 56 kilometers south of Salt Lake City. A seventh baby found appears to have been stillborn, Utah County Attorney Jeffrey Buhman said.
During the police interview, Huntsman was unemotional and matter of fact, said Lieutenant Britt Smith of Pleasant Grove police.
Formal charges have not yet been filed against Huntsman and no other arrests have been made.
The case has raised questions about how the killings occurred despite Huntsman carrying out what neighbors said seemed like a normal existence.
“How can you have a baby and not have evidence and other people know?” asked neighbor SanDee Wall.
Huntsman’s estranged husband, Darren West, who had recently been in prison on drug-related charges, made the discovery on Saturday with fellow family members while cleaning out the garage of the house, which is owned by his parents.
Investigators believe West and Huntsman were together when the babies were born, but don’t believe he was aware of the killings. Buhman said Huntsman also has three daughters — one teenager and two young adults — who lived at the house.
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