Date: 1/8/2009
JERSEY CITY, N.J. (AP) — Police who searched dumps in three states for the remains of a baby thrown out in a Jersey City hospital’s trash gave up Thursday, saying they had little chance of success.
“We have come to the harsh reality that efforts to locate the remains of Bashere Davon Moyd Jr. would be a Herculean undertaking with little probability of a successful conclusion,” Jersey City police Chief Thomas Comey said in a statement posted on the department’s Web site.
Authorities had been looking for the baby’s body since Jan. 2, when it was discovered missing from the morgue at Christ Hospital. The remains apparently were thrown away with the hospital’s trash sometime between Dec. 21 and Jan. 2, police said.
They searched dumps in New Jersey and Pennsylvania before focusing on a landfill in Ashland, Ky., where the waste may have been transferred. On Wednesday, Comey said he feared the waste was sent elsewhere and may have been incinerated.
Hospital officials and police have declined to say exactly how the baby ended up in the trash.
“The investigation failed to uncover any evidence of criminal conduct, but rather indicated this unfortunate incident was the result of procedural deficiencies and human error,” Comey said.
The baby was delivered Dec. 21. Hospital officials say it was stillborn, but the mother, 26-year-old Kalynn Moore, said her son was born alive with a weak heartbeat and died about 20 minutes later as doctors tried to save him.
Whether the child was stillborn is an important legal distinction because New Jersey law does not recognize stillborn babies as human.
Moore’s lawyer, Michael Anise, has said that a lawsuit is likely. He maintains there is no reason for the body of a fetus to have been thrown into the trash.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
Man being prosecuted in NM under federal fetus law
Date: 12/30/2008
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Federal prosecutors in New Mexico believe they may be the first to use a 2004 law to charge someone with killing a fetus while causing the death or injury of the mother.
Charges against Frederick Beach, accused of beating his pregnant girlfriend to death, include one under the Unborn Victims of Violence Act. U.S. Attorney Greg Fouratt said his office’s research found “no other case in the country in which that section (of law) has been charged,” the Albuquerque Journal reported Tuesday.
Attorneys for Beach, 37, said they expect to pursue any available legal challenges.
“We may be breaking ground on a new area of law,” said defense attorney Amy Sirignano. “We’re not sure where that will lead us.”
Beach pleaded not guilty last week to killing a fetus and to first-degree murder and child abuse charges.
He is accused of beating to death Verlinda Kinsel, 29, in September and killing the fetus she had said was his. Authorities say the victim’s 9-year-old son witnessed the assault.
If convicted, Beach faces life in prison.
The case is being prosecuted in federal court because Kinsel was killed on the Navajo reservation.
The Unborn Victims of Violence Act stemmed from the abduction and murder of a pregnant woman, Laci Peterson, in California in 2003. The law makes it a crime to kill a fetus in utero at any stage of development while committing another federal crime; it does not require the perpetrator to know the woman was pregnant.
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Information from: Albuquerque Journal, http://www.abqjournal.com
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Federal prosecutors in New Mexico believe they may be the first to use a 2004 law to charge someone with killing a fetus while causing the death or injury of the mother.
Charges against Frederick Beach, accused of beating his pregnant girlfriend to death, include one under the Unborn Victims of Violence Act. U.S. Attorney Greg Fouratt said his office’s research found “no other case in the country in which that section (of law) has been charged,” the Albuquerque Journal reported Tuesday.
Attorneys for Beach, 37, said they expect to pursue any available legal challenges.
“We may be breaking ground on a new area of law,” said defense attorney Amy Sirignano. “We’re not sure where that will lead us.”
Beach pleaded not guilty last week to killing a fetus and to first-degree murder and child abuse charges.
He is accused of beating to death Verlinda Kinsel, 29, in September and killing the fetus she had said was his. Authorities say the victim’s 9-year-old son witnessed the assault.
If convicted, Beach faces life in prison.
The case is being prosecuted in federal court because Kinsel was killed on the Navajo reservation.
The Unborn Victims of Violence Act stemmed from the abduction and murder of a pregnant woman, Laci Peterson, in California in 2003. The law makes it a crime to kill a fetus in utero at any stage of development while committing another federal crime; it does not require the perpetrator to know the woman was pregnant.
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Information from: Albuquerque Journal, http://www.abqjournal.com
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
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