Web searches could incriminate mom

The West Melbourne mom accused of murdering her newborn twins in April gave conflicting reports to and hid evidence from police during early stages of the investigation, according to arrest records.

And while she told investigators that she didn’t know she was pregnant, her internet search history suggests otherwise.

Recently released evidence from the state attorney’s office includes photographs of a bloody crime scene, interviews with the panicked suspect and incriminating internet search history results.

Rachael Thomas, 30, originally told police she had no clue she was pregnant before leaving work sick and giving birth at home April 15, but medical examiner’s reports indicate Thomas was 39 weeks pregnant at the time.

Photos taken at the scene show the corpse of the newborn girl wrapped in a plastic grocery bag. Bloody towels and medical wrap and toilet paper had been stacked around where she was hidden in a garbage bin.

Internet search history shows Thomas had looked up “Affordable Health Insurance Quotes” quickly followed by “How to induse (sic) labor” and a WebMD page titled “How to Induce Labor Naturally: Is It Possible?” just over a week before the deaths of the newborn twins.

Audio from an interview conducted by West Melbourne Police Department Det. Donovan Brickhouse demonstrates Thomas claiming only to have delivered one child, but equivocally denying any knowledge of a second baby.

“Let me ask you this. How many kids did you deliver today? And be honest with me,” Brickhouse asks.

“I think only the one,” Thomas responds.

“Let’s try this again. How many kids did you deliver today?”

“I ... there was only one, I think. I only had felt one.”

“What do you mean you only felt one?” “I only saw one.” Thomas then begins crying, telling the detective she got panicked and scared before she started cleaning up the scene. At one point, she tells him the baby stopped breathing before saying the baby wasn’t breathing to begin with.

“What did you do with the second child?” Brickhouse asks.

“I don’t know. I can’t remember. I’m sorry.”

Brickhouse keeps pressing Thomas to admit that she gave birth to two children, asking her what she did with the second baby until she begins referring to the two children as “they” instead of only to a single baby, according to the audio.

“None of them made any noise or anything.” “How many was there?” “There was two,” Thomas is heard telling investigators finally in the audio.

During the investigation, medical examiners found that both children had blunt-force trauma to their heads. “Baby Jane,” who was found in the outside trash bin, also had a “foreign object” in her mouth, according to police reports.

Thomas, originally charged with felony child abuse, was then charged with killing both infants. She entered pleas of not guilty on all counts on May 16.