The baby's body was discovered at the Julian Youth Academy (Academy), a Christian camp in Whitmore where defendant was a staff member. Alexandra Valencia, one of the staff members who lived in a dormitory with defendant, went into defendant's room to get some extra blankets for Kori Alugas, who was moving into the dorm. As she was looking through a bin of blankets, Valencia noticed an awful smell as if something had died. When she grabbed one of the blankets, the body of a baby rolled out. Valencia did not think the body was real, and she called Alugas in from the other room to show her. Alugas also did not think the baby was real. They left the baby where they had found it, knowing defendant would return to the room soon.
The next day Valencia and Alugas went back to defendant's room to search for the baby, but it was no longer there. Valencia reported what they had seen to her supervisor, Tiffany Morgan. Later that day, Shasta County Sheriff's Deputy Craig Tippings contacted defendant, who led him to the utility room adjacent to her dormitory. He found a dead baby under a pink pillow inside a laundry basket.
Detectives Brian Jackson and Eric Magrini interviewed defendant. She told them that she had been dating her boyfriend, Jovan Castillo, for the last three years. Castillo also worked at the Academy. Defendant denied Castillo had known she was pregnant. She said Castillo had asked her why her stomach was getting big, but she told him she did not know, and she tried to hide her pregnancy by wearing larger clothes. She did not tell Castillo she was pregnant because she was scared, and she did not tell anyone else because she was afraid she would lose her job. Also, she did not want to disappoint anyone. She had been raised in a Christian home and had been taught not to have sex until she was married.
Defendant said she gave birth on September 19, 2011, around 1:00 a.m. on a Monday morning. She gave birth under the deck outside her dorm. She went outside to give birth " 'cause I didn't know if anyone else was in . . . the building or anything.' " She said she stood up and the baby dropped out of her. There was no umbilical cord attached to the baby. Defendant said: "And then I didn't hear her breathing or anything and I was like oh, what do I do? So I was like, like kinda like hitting her back. Not like hard. But just like trying to get her to breathe or something and nothing happened. So then um, I just like sat there and like held her and then I got in my car and I [was] just like holding her in there. And then I like, then I like showered and . . . I just spent the night in my car with her 'cause I was like so devastated. I couldn't tell anyone . . . ." When defendant showered she pulled the umbilical cord out of herself and flushed it down the toilet.
Defendant said the baby did not move at all after being born. She was not alive. The baby's eyes were open, and she expelled a substance on the blanket. Detective Jackson asked defendant why she did not call for help when she realized the baby was not breathing. She replied, "I [was] just scared I guess. I don't really . . . have an explanation. . . ." Defendant said she was going to bury the baby but decided to keep it in her room under some blankets.
The detectives asked defendant if she had ever helped deliver a baby or been in a hospital where a baby had been born. She said no, that the closest she had come was seeing the movie "Knocked Up." She had been sexually active with Castillo for about two years. They relied on condoms for birth control. In response to questioning, she admitted she had an earlier pregnancy scare with Castillo, but she had not been pregnant. The detectives asked her if Castillo would have been excited to learn she was pregnant. She replied, "I think he woulda been bummed because like it's both of our jobs and . . . we both moved up here . . . to do this and stuff like that."
Later in the interview, defendant admitted she had given birth to another baby in March of 2010, but it had been stillborn. Contrary to her earlier claim that she did not tell Castillo she was pregnant this time because he would have been "bummed," she said she did not tell Castillo because he had been "heartbroken" when she lost the first baby and she did not want to "put him through that again."
When detective Jackson told defendant he was concerned the baby had been born alive and she had not been honest with them, she admitted the baby had been born alive. Defendant said she had tried to breastfeed the baby, but nothing would come out. Defendant said she did not know what to do. She said, "I just like took care of her with, tried to feed her and I guess she just starved. But I didn't like harm her or anything. Like it wasn't intentional. . . ." Defendant said the baby had lived about four days.
Defendant said she had taken the baby to an empty apartment on the campus. She had slept there with the baby and had checked on her during work. She said she had tried to get the baby to take regular milk, but she did not have any bottles. When asked why she did not just tell someone she had a baby and needed help, she responded, "I don't fucking know."
Defendant told detectives that when she went to check on the baby on Thursday, the baby had died. She said no one had heard the baby crying because the people who lived next to the empty apartment had been out of town. She said the baby had cried infrequently. She said, "I tried . . . giving her water and stuff. I knew like no nutrition . . . was in it or anything." When asked again why she had not called for help, she responded, "I don't know. I regret it so much."
Detective Jackson asked defendant if she thought she would be better off without the baby and she replied: "The only reason . . . I think like that is because if I had a baby then I don't have a job. And . . . I don't have a place to live . . . and then Jovan doesn't have a job and he doesn't have a place to live. . . ."
Detective Jackson interviewed defendant again the next day. He asked defendant to walk him through how she took care of the baby. She said that after the baby was born she spent most of the night in the car with the baby. She woke up and went to sleep in her room for a couple of hours, leaving the baby in the car. She returned to the car with the baby and stayed there until 12:00 or 1:00 p.m. She then took the baby to the apartment and tried to breastfeed her, but it did not work. She tried to feed the baby water. She left the baby at the apartment alone at 3:00 p.m. while she returned to campus to do her laundry and shower. When she got back to the apartment, the baby had "pooped," so she bathed her in the sink and tried to give her water again. She kept the baby in the apartment the entire time because she did not want anyone to see the baby.
The night following the early morning birth of the baby, defendant went to Redding with Castillo at 5:00 p.m. and left the baby at the apartment. Defendant and Castillo went to a Winco Foods grocery store where defendant said she bought alcohol, but she did not buy anything for the baby. Defendant returned to the Academy around 2:00 or 3:00 a.m., and she went to visit the baby from then until 6:00 a.m.
Defendant then returned to her room to sleep. She was pretty sure she woke up and went back to visit the baby at the apartment. The baby was sleeping, and defendant tried to breastfeed her again. However, the baby would latch on and "fall asleep kinda." Defendant tried, but could not get any milk to come out of her breast, so she tried to give the baby water again with either her finger or with a cup.
On Tuesday afternoon or evening, defendant went back to Redding with Castillo to get groceries, leaving the baby in the apartment. Defendant left the door unlocked, and was not worried about anyone finding the baby because no one usually went there. Defendant kept the baby away from the window in an open closet area.
Defendant knew that she had only 48 hours to safely surrender the baby. "And I was like okay, what am I gonna do? And then I was like it's Wednesday tomorrow and I have to work. I was like I'll just take a sick day and I'll take her and um, so I like went to work and I was like acting like I didn't feel good. And um, Tiffany [Morgan] was just like well just stick it out or whatever. So I didn't take the day off. So then I was just like, I was like okay, what am I, I'll just wait 'till my days off and hopefully she'll make it."
Detective Jackson confronted defendant, saying, "You know that wasn't gonna happen. I mean how many times a day do you eat?" Defendant replied, "I know." Detective Jackson continued: "[Y]ou didn't do anything to help her. . . . You didn't wanna affect Jovan's life. You didn't wanna affect your life. You were more concerned about those things than hers. Okay. So you let her die. How loud did she scream at times the days before she passed, from hunger?" Defendant replied, "he was just like crying. She didn't really scream and I comforted her."
Defendant said she did not name the baby because if she named her it would make it real. She said, "I didn't feel like I could name her after like what I did to her." The detective asked, "What'd you do to her?" Defendant replied, "I . . . didn't take care of her."
Castillo testified that when defendant had been pregnant with their first child, they had discussed the need for her to have an abortion so they would not both lose their jobs. Castillo thought that defendant had taken the Plan B pill and terminated the pregnancy, but learned months later that defendant was still pregnant. Defendant delivered a baby girl in the hospital. The baby was placed on life support. They made the decision to take the baby off life support because they were told she had been deprived of oxygen and would likely be mentally handicapped. Defendant and Castillo returned to work and kept the birth a secret.
Sheriff's deputies recorded a conversation between defendant and Castillo after he found out the second baby had been born alive. Castillo asked defendant what had happened to the baby, and she responded, "Just, she didn't make it." Castillo asked, "How?" Defendant responded, "I didn't take good and go to the hospital and . . . I didn't have my milk and I didn't . . . I don't know. I just didn't. Doesn't fucking make any sense. I am sorry. And I'm, I don't deserve anything. I don't, I'm sorry." Defendant also said, "I didn't . . . feed her. But not on purpose. Like I just didn't go and buy stuff for her." Castillo asked why she had not taken the baby to a safe surrender site, and she said, " 'Cause I couldn't let her go. She's so beautiful."
Alugas had worked at the Academy on several occasions. At one point she became pregnant, and although she was treated well, she was not allowed to continue to work while she was pregnant. After she delivered her baby, she returned to work and brought her baby with her. She returned the January before defendant had the baby in September. Alugas regularly brought her baby to work, or if she could not, other staff members would watch the baby. Alugas and her child lived in the apartment in Pasture 2, the same apartment in which defendant kept her baby. When she left the apartment in August, she left behind blankets, a bed, a playpen, a breast pump, and plastic nipples. There were also baby bottles and miscellaneous plasticware in the apartment.
Anna Mace also worked at the Academy. One afternoon she parked next to defendant's truck and heard a young infant crying. The crying seemed to be coming from somewhere in the middle of the truck. She could not see anything inside the truck or anywhere in the vicinity. The prosecution introduced the temperature records for the week of September 19, 2011. The high temperatures were as follows: September 19 was 94 degrees Fahrenheit; September 20 was 96 degrees; September 21 was 98 degrees; September 22 was 99 degrees; and September 23 was 100 degrees.
Dwayne Smith was irrigating near the Pasture 2 apartment early one morning in September when he heard an infant crying. He walked to the front of the apartment and saw no cars. He got in his truck and drove toward the office to see if anyone knew whether someone was staying in the apartment. On the way, he spoke to Blaize Morgan, who said he did not know that anyone was living in the apartment, and was surprised to hear that Smith heard a baby crying. Morgan called over the radio to ask if anyone was staying in the Pasture 2 apartment, and a female voice responded that no one was staying there. Smith went to the staff room to obtain the key to the apartment, but the key was gone. Smith drove to the maintenance shed to retrieve a second set of keys. As he drove to the apartment, he passed defendant, who was driving in the opposite direction. When Smith got to the apartment, it was empty.
When defendant was interviewed, she claimed she had done a Google search to find out how to make her breast milk come faster. A forensic search of defendant's computer showed no searches for the word "breastfeeding" but showed defendant had searched for "abortion [p]ill for cheap," "Planned Parenthood," "at home abortions," "abortion pill," "babies in the first trimester," "always hungry, Plan B," "Plan B, One Step pharmacists, side effects and tolerability," "How to use vitamin C to bring on a delayed period," "home abortion remedy vitamin C," and "Vitamin C abortions." There were data files in both defendant's phone and laptop that had been deleted.
Expert testimony indicated that a newborn baby could live for about four days without food or water, but if the temperature were warm death would be accelerated due to dehydration. After an autopsy, the forensic pathologist concluded the baby had been full term and fully developed when she was born. There were no abnormalities and everything looked normally developed. The baby did not die from obvious trauma, but the pathologist could not exclude starvation, dehydration, or asphyxia as a cause of death.
The doctor who delivered defendant's first baby testified regarding the details of that birth. He testified that when defendant came to the emergency room with her first baby, she was ready to deliver and she had a fever. Her water had broken two days before she came into the emergency room. Defendant had chorioamnionitis--an infection in the amniotic fluid around the baby. The doctor testified it is likely the baby would have lived if defendant had come in when her water broke.
A social worker who saw defendant after the first birth also testified. She stated that after the baby died defendant was sitting in her room smiling, which had not seemed appropriate. Defendant had acted as if the baby's death was no big deal. Defendant told the social worker that there would have been a stigma attached to being pregnant because she and her boyfriend worked at a Christian camp, and they were not supposed to have sexual relations.
The defense presented the testimony of Dr. Stephen Pine, an obstetrician/gynecologist. Dr. Pine testified that he believed defendant had delivered the baby precipitously, noting that the umbilical cord had been ripped, not cut. He testified that in such a case the baby would bleed potentially for several minutes until the cord was clamped down. Since defendant had not clamped the cord, the baby could have bled for a while and become severely anemic, which could have led to dehydration and a weakened state. Dr. Pine believed the baby could have had an infection, pneumonia, or some sort of lung aspiration. He opined that when the umbilical cord tore away, it could have caused severe damage of internal organs, and that the baby would not have been able to feed well if it had anemia and an infection.
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