Local story: where do you stand?
Moms View Message Board: The Kitchen Table (Debating Board): Local story: where do you stand?
BAYTOWN, TX (KTRK) -- A 14-year-old Houston-area girl gave birth to a full-term baby in a bathroom at her junior high school on Wednesday, then tried to flush it down the toilet, killing the infant, police said.
"The baby was alive when it was born," said Lt. Eric Freed with the Baytown Police Department. "The girl attempted to flush the child down the toilet, and the child died as a result."
As 12, 13, 14 year olds leave school, their parents are just beginning to learn the shocking news. A 14-year-old classmate gave birth in the school bathroom and, according to police, tried to flush the baby down the toilet.
"I was a single parent for 11 years," said Heather Kennington. "When you're put in that position, when you think that you can't go to your parents and tell them, that's scary."
Police the girl gave birth around 10:45am. A fellow student notified the school nurse that the teenager needed help. By the time paramedics arrived, the baby was pronounced dead.
Goose Creek ISD spokesperson Kathy Claussen said, "According to everyone I talked to, no one knew she was pregnant."
The teenager is now recovering at a local hospital. While the investigation continues, parents like Neris Ibarra are sympathetic. She became a mother at 14, and her son now attends the same school.
She said, "Maybe she was scared. She's young, but then she should be responsible, because she did what she did."
"They need to do more to educate the kids," suggested parent Tiffany Foy. "They don't think about the consequences of their actions."
School officials say they will have additional counselors on hand. They add that there is already a process in place to help students.
"There is help for students," Claussen told Eyewitness News. "We do have a program in the district, and we just have to hope that this doesn't happen again."
The district has a program for teenage mothers. As for sex education, school administrators say they do not have a sex ed program, per se, but they do have an abstinence-based program that they teach to junior high and high school students.
Baytown police are treating this as a homicide investigation. The girl is being examined at San Jacinto Methodist Hospital in Baytown. She has not yet been interviewed by officers.
The body has been sent to the Harris County Medical Examiner's Office where an autopsy is scheduled Thursday to determine the cause and manner of death. Authorities did not immediately release the gender of the baby.
BAYTOWN, TX (KTRK) -- Baytown police are still investigating what happened when a young teen gave birth in a junior high bathroom.
On Friday, we talked with the student's attorney, Gerald Yoakum. He says police reports that the student tried to flush the newborn down the toilet are inaccurate. He says she didn't even know she was pregnant.
"She did not know she was giving birth to a child," said Yoakum. "There was, there's no evidence that she did anything intentional. This was a tragic accident."
Yoakum says his client never heard or saw the baby, that help arrived, and she was taken out of the bathroom quickly. The Harris County Medical Examiner's office is in charge of the autopsy, but does not yet have any details to release to the public.
At this point I don't think anything, because I don't know nearly enough. Until there is an autopsy, no one knows whether the baby was stillborn or born alive. The police weren't there when it happened, so they don't know whether she tried to flush it down the toilet - all they are going on, if anything, is what another child may have told them. Lt. Freed doesn't know what he is talking about at this point, when he is quoted as saying the baby was born alive; I think it is highly unprofessional for him to make such a statement to the press. According to the article, the police have not yet interviewed the girl, so they really don't know much at all.
I find it hard to believe that this was a full-term pregnancy and no one noticed that the girl was pregnant, so it is entirely possible that this was a miscarriage and the baby was stillborn.
I think the article is a sensationalized collection of bits and pieces of hearsay and very incomplete information. The reporter was talking to anyone who would talk to the reporter, whether the persons mentioned in the article knew anything or not. The reporter doesn't even say who this Heather Kennington is. It reads like the reporter wanted to get a "hot" story to use as the teaser to get people to watch the evening news. The reporter apparently didn't even ask the Lt. Freed how he knew the baby was born alive, so far in advance of the autopsy report.
Actually it was reported that the baby died from water in the lungs, so it took a breath. It is very sad.
Unfortuantly when teenagers have sex they can get pregnant and they just know so little about their bodies, their periods are off, they don't "miss" if they aren't having them. Also because they don't eat well, sure she had to notice she was gaining weight, but this age grows so much so fast, I think it could be hard to notice.
The same day, a different 14 year old gave birth to a baby in an airplane here in houston, same story different location.
If you think back to child birth (those who didn't have drugs), contractions do really feel like bad gas and when that child crowns you absolutely feel the urge to go. Chances are with these teens, no prenatal care, no change of life, no acknoledgement, these full term babies had to of been rather small (5 pounds). I think it is possible, just very sad.
I agree, Kaye, it is very, very sad. And sadly, "abstinence only" sex education doesn't help. But I still say that until the autopsy report is in, no one knows if the child was born alive or not. Whoever reported "water in the lungs" is stretching, without the autopsy report.
Not enough facts and for sures for me to have an opinion on this one.
I believe it is possible for someone to hide a pregnancy to full-term, a family friend did, even from her mother, when she was 17. She'd always worn big clothes, and actually my mom had finally guessed it because she was looking very pale. Still, I think this should be treated as homicide, assuming the facts are accurate. There are things you can do, like drop the baby off at a fire dept or hospital, rather than kill it. I have no tolerance for this type of thing, regardless of the mother's age.
I know you can hide a pregnancy. I worked with a girl who had no idea she was pregnant. She was a bigger girl to begin with and I worked with her until the day she delivered and I never knew. She had periods through out her entire pregnancy. Early on in her pregnancy she went to the doctor because she was having some swelling and they said she was diabetic and put her on a special diet. The swelling went down and she actually lost some weight. At the end of her pregnancy, she went to the ER one night at 11 pm with severe pains and they first told her it was her gall bladder. It was during some test in prep for emergency gall bladder surgery that they discovered she was actually in labor. By the next morning, she had a son!
Sad situation. On the option that a girl/woman can drop the baby off at a hospital, fire or police station...how is a 14 year old to do this while delivering a baby at school?
She can not drive and who knows where the nearest safe facility is in her area; and would a 14 year old know this information?
I have talked with my kids about their sexuality, pregnancy, their bodies but many parents do not.
Do you think the parents of the teenagers; the boy and the girl, should be held liable? Parents are held responsible when their underage children drink and drive.
I think the Amercian family is broken and unless parents step up to the plate then more of these horrific scenerios will continue. It's not up to the school to teach children about sex education. It's a parents' job. My kids' did attend classes about sex ed but I did not let the school have the last say.
We must remember that a 14 year old brain is not developed enough to consider the severity of what she did to the baby.
I am no way excusing her for what she did but I think the poor girl was scared and between a rock and a hard place.
Just very, very sad. As has been stated, there is a lot about the situation that we do not know. Perhaps the girl came from a very disfunctional or apathetic family. Perhaps the baby was a result of rape or incest. Perhaps the baby's father turned violent against her, or threatened her if she exposed him. We don't know. I am NOT in ANY way saying that she was justified in what she did. It IS homicide, and she should pay the consequences. However, I am trying to look at it from a 14 year old's perspective. I grew up in an age (the 1950's and '60's) where people "had to get married" if the girl got pregnant. My parents (more like my mother) used to threaten to send me to a "home for unwed mothers" (yes, they really had such a thing), if I had ever gotten pregnant out of wedlock. Girls stayed there during their pregnancy (with family members and neighbours being told that she was "attending school abroad"). She would give birth and the baby would be whisked away to a waiting adoptive family. How grandparents can "give away" their own grandchild, regardles of the age of their daughter, is beyond my comprehension.
So, I can understand how a 14 year old girl would panic, ESPECIALLY if she didn't even know that she was pregnant. We can only imagine the fear and lonliness that she felt. However, once it was done, she SHOULD have sought help from school authorities. There is no excuse for killing the baby, if that is what happened. And, even if there was water in the lungs, it could have happened when the baby fell into the toilet, and not from being drowned deliberately. And, it is so true that the news media will report ANYTHING to sell a story, even if the facts are not there.
The most cold hearted story that I ever heard was a girl who gave birth in the bathroom during her prom. She put the baby under soiled paper towels in the trash can of a blood spattered stall, then went back out to the dance floor to "party". In that case, the baby survived.
What a world! 
Hol, the issue was the way it would look to the rest of the people they knew. Disgracing the family name was not to happen and an unwed pregnancy was one of those big disgraces you would seldom over come. It was worth loosing the connection/relationship with the grandchild to prevent shaming the rest of the family.
That said, I would have to hear/read more before I formed an opinion on this. Honestly with the way this world is going I wouldn't be surprised if she did kill the baby..
However, I tend to agree with Ginny and the fact that the News will slant themselves towards scandal so that they can draw more viewers. I would want to know what the medical examiner finds, before I form an opinion. That or an confession from the child, we won't ever hear anything unless she did do it, and then it will be front page news.
An update on this story...
BAYTOWN, TX (KTRK) -- A young teenage mother is now facing capital murder charges after her baby was found dead in her Baytown school bathroom earlier this year.
The baby boy was found dead in the junior high school toilet 12 weeks ago.
"I can just say that the arrest was done smoothly, quickly and efficiently," said Captain Roger Clifford with the Baytown Police Department.
It was April 2 when police responded to Cedar Bayou Junior High. Authorities say the 5 pound 6 ounce baby died after being submerged in the toilet. An autopsy revealed the child, who was full term, had toilet paper stuffed in his mouth and suffered blunt trauma to his neck and head.
Story continues belowAdvertisement
Initially, the teenage mother told police she wasn't aware she was pregnant. Authorities say that was not true.
"Obviously, folks, obviously we're not going to charge somebody with capital murder if they had no knowledge of what was going on," said Clifford.
The teen's attorney, Gerald Yoakum, released a statement Thursday. It says, in part, "In the next few weeks and months, we are sure that all the facts, and only the facts, not opinions and speculations, will control this case."
Yoakum continues, "Please remember that this a 14-year-old child who has experienced a tragic event."
Meantime, back at the school, officials say classmates are still dealing with the tragedy.
"It was very upsetting for everyone involved," said school spokesperson Kathy Claussen. "It's a very sad situation."
The teen is currently being detained at the Harris County Juvenile Detention Center. If she's certified as an adult and convicted, she could face up to live in prison.
We've had a case or two like that here, too, but with older girls. We have the Safe Haven law, so if you drop a baby off at a hospital, and no questions are asked, and not have to kill the baby.
She did murder the baby. I know she's young, but she had to have known that the baby would die.
We have that law here, it's marked on all hospitals, fire departments, and police stations. I can't remember what exactly it's called but I've seen it.
IMO, she killed the baby and should suffer SOME consequences. Whether she realized she was pregnant or not isn't really relavant, the outcome was a baby BORN ALIVE. It says that he had toliet paper shoved in his month and submerged under water. My seven year olds knows enough that would harm a baby even kill, you can't tell me she wasn't trying to kill the baby.
I'm torn on the punishment, I don't necesaryily believe life in prison is appropriate, I think at the VERY least she should be put in a juvenile detention center until she is 18 or 21.
She needs to suffer some consequences. Not sure exactly what, but she intentionally killed that baby. Can you imagine the trauma that little innocent baby endured while she was trying to get rid of it?
I know she is young, and was scared, but that was no excuse for doing what she did.
I keep thinking, if I were a teenager and I knew I was pregnant but couldn't keep the baby, I would have given thought to what I could do once the baby was born. If she wanted to stay anon and leave the infant somewhere, anywhere, this could have been an out for her. That would have been my thought process. Leave the little one where he/she would be found quickly and where the baby would be safe and taken care of. I don't understand this teenager. I can only imagine how scared and overwhelmed she must have felt, but still, this was a human life.
I was sort of on her side till I read that the baby had toilet paper in it's mouth.
I know her attorney is portraying her as a victim too, but unless she was raped or molested, I don't think she is a true 'victim'. Bad judgement doesn't make you a victim, but I am not sure what the punishment should be.
Exactly, annie, when you say bad judgement doesn't make you a victim. I was just two years older than her when I got pregnant. Bad judgement resulting in me getting pregnant? Yes. Victim? Absolutely not.
I agree with yall. I think life in prison is too much, but she does need punishment. I can buy the whole not knowing she was pg, or at least, not knowing how far along she was. But the tp gets me too. I assume, that was to quiet a crying baby, probably not to kill it. It is just so sad. Not only do we have those laws here, they always cover on the news when it is used, and what a great choice the mom made. They don't disclose which hospital or station, it stays very anon. She could have made a better choice.
In a nutshell, I believe it is murder and it should be tried as such.
|
Members
