A 16-year-old Nebraska girl has been charged with stabbing an infant to death shortly after the baby was born.
Court records say the girl is charged with first degree murder and use of a deadly weapon to commit a felony, the Scottsbluff Star Herald reports.
Police were called to a home in Gordon, in northwestern Nebraska near the South Dakota state line, on Monday evening for a report that the teen had given birth and baby was not breathing, an arrest affidavit says. The officers were met by the girl’s father, who told them the baby was stillborn and “that it was too late.”
The officers entered a bedroom, however, and saw the girl squatting by the door and her mother, holding the infant wrapped in a towel, crying hysterically. The mother said her daughter had hurt the newborn and that marks could be seen on the infant.
An officer attempted first aid and saw the baby’s throat had been cut, through the windpipe, and that the child had been stabbed multiple times on the left side of the chest.
The girl’s parents said their daughter had come to them earlier in the evening and said she needed to go to the store for some sanitary pads because she was having an unusually large period. After the girl left, the mother said, one of the family’s dogs went into the girl’s bedroom, and the mother reported finding a large amount of blood on the floor and the wall when she retrieved the dog.
She confronted the girl when she came back from the store 15 or 20 minutes later, and the teen admitted having given birth and killed the baby. The mother called for her husband, who found the baby’s body in a closet.
The parents also said they recalled seeing their daughter go into the kitchen about an hour before leaving to go to the store. There, she opened a drawer that held a honing knife. The parents looked in the drawer in the presence of officers and said the knife was missing.
The teen was taken to Gordon Memorial Hospital and then transferred by air to Regional West Medical Center in Socttsbluff, where she reportedly underwent surgery.
The parents allowed police to search the home, and officers uncovered blood-soaked clothing and towels and other blood evidence. They were called back to the house later in teh evening when the father reported finding the missing knife in the girl’s closet.
It’s not clear from the reports if the girl’s parents knew she had been pregnant.
The teen was arraigned in Sheridan County Court on Thursday and ordered held without bond.
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