US mom ‘kills 7 babies’
39-year-old Megan Huntsman booked on six counts of murder as US shocked
pleasant GROVE (Utah) — The discovery of seven dead babies in cardboard boxes in a Utah garage has shocked the United States and police are desperately seeking answers from the mother and other family members about how such a gruesome tragedy unfolded over a decade with no one noticing.
Megan Huntsman, 39, is accused of killing her babies after giving birth to the children between 1996 and 2006, investigators said. She was booked on Sunday on six counts of murder. It wasn’t immediately clear if Huntsman has an attorney or why there were six counts and not seven.
The gruesome case has raised a series of questions about how the killings occurred despite Huntsman carrying out what neighbours said seemed like a normal existence. Police declined to comment on a motive and on what Huntsman said during an interview with investigators. Her estranged husband made the discovery while cleaning out the garage after recently getting out of prison. Authorities do not believe he was aware of the killings and he isn’t a person of interest at this time.
Police Capt. Michael Roberts said officers responded to a call from him on Saturday about a dead infant, and then they found the six other bodies.
Family and neighbours identified the estranged husband as Darren West, who has been in prison on drug-related charges.
Roberts said police believe West and Huntsman were together when the babies were born. “We don’t believe he had any knowledge of the situation,” Roberts told AP.
Asked how West could not have known about the situation, Roberts replied, “That’s the million-dollar question. Amazing.”
The babies’ bodies were sent to the Utah medical examiner’s office for tests, including one to determine the cause of death. DNA samples taken from the suspect and her husband will determine definitively whether the two are the parents, as investi- gators believe. Huntsman also has three daughters — one teenager and two young adults — who lived at the house.
Neighbours in the middle-class neighborhood of mostly older homes 60km from Salt Lake City say they were shocked by the accusations and perplexed that the woman’s older children still living in the home didn’t know their mother was pregnant or notice anything suspicious. Police say West made the grisly dis- covery at the house owned by his parents in a city of about 35,000 people at the foot of snow-capped mountains. It’s a nondescript, newer home with a brick facade and a star ornament hanging by the door.
Several police cars blocked the entrance to the house on Sunday evening as officers milled about with the belongings from the garage strewn across the front lawn.
Late on Sunday, West’s family issued a statement saying they were in a “state of shock and confusion.” West pleaded guilty in federal court in 2005 to two counts of possessing chemicals intended to be used in manufacturing methamphetamine, court records show. In August 2006, he was sentenced to 9 years in prison, but appealed the term three times. He maintained his innocence and said he never had any intention to manufacture meth. It’s unclear when he was released.
Neighbours told the AP they were shocked and horrified by the accusations of what went on inside the home. None of them even knew Huntsman was pregnant in recent years. The family members seemed like nice people and good neighbours, said Aaron and Kathie Hawker, who lives next door.
Huntsman moved out several years ago, leaving her three daughters to live alone, the Hawkers said. They weren’t sure where Huntsman has since been living. —