A Georgia woman was accused of putting her lifeless newborn baby in the freezer. Pictured, the feet of a two-week-old boy, March 20, 2007...
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| A Georgia woman was accused of putting her lifeless newborn baby in the freezer. Pictured, the feet of a two-week-old boy, March 20, 2007. Photo: Getty Images/ Christopher Furlong |
By Pritha Paul, International Business Times
A Georgia woman was accused of putting her lifeless newborn baby in the freezer.
According to an incident report obtained Thursday by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Carol June Sautter, 45, told her ex-boyfriend she put the corpse of her stillborn baby in the freezer of her Cobb-County home in Georgia. It was not clear if it was the former boyfriend who alerted the investigators, who raided the accused’s home June 25 and found the newborn’s body in the freezer.
Although the Cobb County Medical Examiner’s office said it was impossible to know whether Sautter gave birth to a stillborn baby or a live one, without the autopsy report, investigators believe she gave birth to the full-term baby between June 7 and June 11 and the death occurred a short while after.
Instead of informing the proper authorities about her infant’s death, Sautter chose to hide the body in the freezer.
[post_ads]“The said accused did not notify law enforcement, medical personnel, the medical examiner's office or coroner of the death,” the arrest warrant stated. “Said accused sent text messages to multiple subjects in reference to the child, including photographs of the deceased.”
The police said the photographs sent by Sautter clearly showed the baby had a portion of the umbilical cord still attached to the body.
Dr. Jan Gorniak, Fulton County medical examiner who is not involved in the investigation, said he did not have high hopes the police will find out whether the baby was a stillborn or not because the fact that the corpse was frozen could complicate matters. They had to wait for the body to thaw, at which point it will begin to decompose rapidly, which in turn could inhibit some of the determinant markers.
"They can probably determine the cause, but babies are difficult,” Gorniak said Thursday. “In a case like this, what they're going to have to determine is whether or not it was stillborn.”
A woman is accused of putting her dead newborn in a freezer, and investigators say the baby still had some of the umbilical cord attached. https://t.co/ptAuroeZyM pic.twitter.com/c9RHIag4fg— FOX 10 Phoenix (@FOX10Phoenix) July 19, 2018
Gorniak added performing autopsies on an infant was a difficult task. However, even if the coroner was unable to determine a cause of death, he was pretty confident the manner of death will be discovered. “Even if you don't have a cause, you can still rule it a homicide,” she said.
When investigators visited Sautter’s house under the pretext of a welfare check, she reportedly told them they could not look inside the freezer and began crying hysterically. The investigators, however, did take a peek inside it when they discovered the body. Sautter was arrested the same day and charged with concealing a death.
The accused does not have a criminal record and is being held in the Cobb County jail without bail till the investigation is concluded. It is unclear if she has appointed a ulawyer to represent her.
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