The idea that a mother would murder her own newborn child is both heart-breaking and disturbing. That a woman could do it six different times is unfathomable.
Megan Huntsman confessed to Pleasant Grove, Utah police over the weekend that she had killed six newborn children. She had given birth to at least seven children over a period of ten years.
As law enforcement officials work to understand why this happened, perhaps the most chilling aspect of this case is that no one suspected the truth.
The startling discovery was made entirely by chance.
Darren West, estranged husband to the 39-year-old suspect, decided to clean out the garage of their Pleasant Grove home. A few family members were helping him through the tedious task.
While cleaning, West happened upon a dead infant.
Horrified, he summoned Huntsman. According to court documents, she confessed to West that the deceased newborn was hers.
This story continues to simply leave me dumbfounded. Mother killed 6 babies between 1996-2006. Where was the family? http://t.co/FISeebpeZ7
— Tolu Adeleru Balogun (@reinaLydia) April 15, 2014
Read the court docs, listen to the first court appearance of a woman accused of killing 6 babies: http://t.co/YYB8BCnoEN @fox13now #Utah
— Ben Winslow (@BenWinslow) April 15, 2014
West soon after called the police. A search of the garage turned up six murdered infants in all. A seventh child’s remains were found, but that infant appears to have been stillborn.
Huntsman was arrested on Sunday and charged with six counts of murder. Her bail is set at $6 million—$1 million for each murdered infant.
During her confession to law enforcement officials, Pleasant Grove police Lt. Britt Smith noted that Huntsman was unemotional about what she had done and that she made cold matter of fact statements as to how she treated the murdered infants.
The suspect told police that all but one of the children had been born alive. She said that she’d given birth to at least seven children between 1996 and 2006 at her former home at Pleasant Grove.
Each living child had been suffocated or strangled by Huntsman immediately after they were born. She told police that she then wrapped the infant’s body in a shirt or towel, and then placed it into a plastic bag. The bag was then packed into box in the garage.
Investigators have requested DNA testing on the bodies to confirm Huntsman as the mother to the murdered newborns. The testing is expected to answer some questions regarding paternity as it is unknown if the infants had the same father.
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