7 Babies Found Dead in Utah Home; Woman Arrested

[Omaha Steve]

Source: ABC News

By LIZ FIELDS and DEAN SCHABNER

A woman has been arrested on six counts of murder after authorities found the bodies of seven infants packed into separate cardboard boxes at a home in Utah, police said.

Police arrested Megan Huntsman, 39, of Pleasant Grove, on Saturday following a gruesome discovery at a residence formerly occupied by the woman who they say moved out in 2011.

Officers responding to a phone call from a family member who is currently living at the Pleasant Grove residence arrived at the home to find the first baby which "appeared to be a full term," according to a police statement.

"A family member was cleaning out the garage and came across a box that looked suspicious. Upon opening the box they found the infant inside," Capt. Michael Roberts of the Pleasant Grove Police Department told ABC News.

FULL story at link.



Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/US/babies-found-dead-utah-home-woman-arrested/story?id=23311067

---

Megan Huntsman appears in this mugshot provided by the Pleasant Grove Utah Police.

[OKNancy]

1. a little more info in the Salt Lake paper

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/57814129-78/police-huntsman-husband-dead.html.csp

[TwilightGardener]

2. Good God.

[840high]

3. No words.

[catnhatnh]

4. How popular is the name Huntsman???

Because I recall a certain republican presidential candidate from Utah with that surname....

[LadyHawkAZ]

8. Not as common as Smith, Taylor or Young, but not uncommon either n/t

[catnhatnh]

11. Thanks LadyHawk N/T

[Freddie]

5. Mental illness

The husband must have known she was pregnant at least some if those times.
This is like a case a few years ago in Arizona (I think) where a guy bought one of those storage lockers sight-unseen (the owner had not paid their bill) and found several little skeletons in shoe boxes that the previous owner had stored there.

[Neoma]

6. Be more specific.

Mental illness covers way too many illnesses to blatantly show what you're talking about.

[Freddie]

12. Postpartum psychosis

Is usually why a woman would kill her newborn. This is why, in most European countries, a woman killing her newborn is not charged with murder but treated for mental illness.
As a fan of true-crime nonfiction, there have been a number of cases of women killing a series of babies over the years. Some of the cases were Munchausen-syndrome-by-proxy, whereby the mother deliberately made her baby sick (often by smothering) to get attention, and sometimes she'd go to far. And in a few cases (I suspect this one) the woman was in a bad, possibly abusive relationship and was scared to admit she was pregnant. All stories heart-wrenching.

[Neoma]

14. Sounds plausible enough.

Never heard of that one.

[CTyankee]

29. I mentioned this as a real possibility on another thread on this subject.

I had a co-worker who experienced postpartum psychosis where she heard voices telling her to kill her newborn infant. Thankfully, she sought and got help and she's fine today. But this is a woman who was a graduate of Yale Divinity School and a gifted and creative person. She is now a professional writer. Her son is fine.

[exboyfil]

7. There has to be a book that comes out of this

I wonder if the investigative journalists are descending on Utah.

[AtheistCrusader]

16. Nancy Grace will be all over this like shit on a sewer pipe.

[Historic NY]

9. Whoa....

thats a mug shot of what appears to be a disturbed person. Seven babies and no one noticed.

[hedgehog]

19. No one looks good in a mug shot - so I'd be careful about

making a diagnosis based on one.

[snooper2]

20. Well, I thought you might be wrong on that, and did a search

Believe it or not, there is actually a website dedicated to hot mugshot photos LOL



http://soshitech.com/2013/01/11/hot-mug-shots-twenty-photos/

[MADem]

23. Tom Delay looked great in his--well, as great as a cretin could look...

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/tom-delay-mug-shot

[warrant46]

10. The Face in the Mug-Shot

Cuts right to the Quick

As a former writing teacher I would like to assign a 500 word essay to the viewer of the photo.

With the subject " What is Happening in her Life?"

[RBInMaine]

13. Mentally ill, obviously.

[closeupready]

21. Or not obviously.

[hedgehog]

24. What would be the response should a Right wing commentator make a diagnosis of mental illness

based upon a single mug shot?

[Sunlei]

15. how very tragic & sad. 7 found and how many more tiny bodies never found.

[tofuandbeer]

17. WTF????

[catbyte]

18. Didn't the husband get even a little suspicious that she was pregnant so many times

with nothing to show for it? I know some people are clueless, but come on.

[valerief]

25. These poor women who can't (via Jesus) get abortions. nt

[Scairp]

27. This isn't about that

There are such things as birth control, all kinds from prescription to stuff you can buy at the pharmacy. There is something wrong with this woman they we are not aware of as yet, and I can't imagine the authorities have all the facts either, so to just jump in with both feet and say she secretly gave birth at least seven times and murdered all seven is overreaching, IMO. At least at this point in the investigation. No post mortem report on the babies' bodies has been released so they can't even know how they died.

[valerief]

28. I still feel bad for women born into cultures, like the Jesus culture, that won't let them get

abortions. That can make anyone crazy.

[Scairp]

30. Abortion isn't birth control

To link this case to the lack of abortion services in any given state is to undermine what it means when access to abortions is severely restricted. This is about one nutty woman who, due to whatever demons in her own mind, was pregnant multiple times, nobody even noticed, nobody saw anything, so far as we know, and yet has ALLEGEDLY secretly given birth as many as seven times, hidden the bodies, didn't get rid of them, which could tell the right psychiatrist a great deal about her motivations, and then left them behind in her old house for anyone to find. Although this seems inexplicable to those of us who could never even think of such a thing, she obviously had her reasons, allegedly. I await the psychiatric report on her, and also the post mortem reports on the bodies.

[valerief]

32. The Jesus culture doesn't like birth control either, so when your hubby

gets you pregnant, you, being subservient to him, are not allowed to prevent the pregnancy nor terminate it. These women-hating cultures breed crimes.

[darkangel218]

26. I hope they do DNA tests on the corpses.

I have a feeling they might not all (if any ) be her babies.

7 incognito home deliveries, with no complications and no suspicion from anyone, it's a lil far fetched.

Waiting for those lab results.

[Scairp]

31. NBCNews.com reporting she confessed

But so did Andrea Yates and she was mad as a hatter. This has got to be a similar kind of case, at least that is my theory given the scant facts released so far. I agree it's still very odd she could do this seven times, being lucky enough with each birth that her labors started at a most convenient time every time, and that she was able to do this alone seven times without dying one of those times is just incredible. No prenatal care, not even another person present, or so they are saying right now. Lots of holes to fill in.