GRUESOME DISCOVERY OF BABY’S BODY TOLD IN COURT 20 YEARS ON
A MOTHER accused over the death of her baby boy, whose maimed body was found dumped outside a Mooroobool home 22 years ago, allegedly told police she had killed the child.
Maria Lena Raymond, 44, has pleaded not guilty in the Cairns Supreme Court to manslaughter and neglecting to properly dispose of human remains between May 1 and 5, 1996.
A former Cairns police officer told the jury that Raymond had said she had killed her baby 15 years ago.
Naomi Blanche said she had gone to the corner of Chester and Cochrane streets just before 5am on March 5, 2012, where Raymond had said she had tried to kill herself.
“She was muttering that she needed to be arrested, that she’d killed her baby, he was blue and didn’t know what to do,” Ms Blanche said yesterday.
“She said that she had left him on the side of the street. She said that this had happened 15 years earlier.”
The top half of the infant’s body was found by Patrick Callaghan in the driveway of his Hayward St home on May 4, 1996.
“I thought it was a doll. Had a closer look then realised that it was real,” he said.
Crown prosecutor Nigel Rees asked Mr Callaghan to describe for the jury exactly what he saw.
“Half a baby with the umbilical cord still attached,” he said.
The court was told that the body appeared to have been cut with a sharp instrument. There were also numerous sideways cuts on the baby’s palms and forearms.
Forensic pathologist Professor Anthony Ansford, in a statement tendered to court, said he was unable to determine cause of death but in his opinion the “child was born alive”.
He said that material found in the baby’s lungs suggested the baby had inhaled contaminated water “and raises the possibility of drowning … and of the baby having been born into and/or drowned in a toilet bowl”.
Mr Rees told the jury that DNA evidence suggested the baby was very likely to be the offspring of Raymond and her then-partner.
The court was told that during a conversation with psychiatric registrar Sharmila Prakash in 2015, Raymond said she was overwhelmed with guilt and had been involved in the death of her one-day-old child 19 years earlier. Ms Prakash said that Raymond had told her that she didn’t know she was pregnant and had given birth at home.
Ms Prakash said Raymond told her the child had been stillborn and she called a neighbour for help.
“The following day heard on the radio about the baby being cut in half,” she said.
Defence barrister Peter Feeney asked Ms Prakash if Raymond also thought a chip had been inserted into her forehead so others could monitor her thoughts.
“That’s correct,” Ms Prakash said. The trial continues.
SHE WAS MUTTERING THAT SHE NEEDED TO BE ARRESTED, THAT SHE’D KILLED HER BABY
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