A judge has set a trial date for a woman charged with killing her newborn baby and leaving the child’s body in a department store trash can.
Jessica Price – who pleaded not guilty to murder, tampering with evidence and abuse of a corpse – will go to trial on Dec. 2.
Police say the 21-year-old gave birth at the Kohl’s in Hillview in Bullitt County on Aug. 8 during her shift and left the newborn’s body in the trash can before going home.
http://liarcatchers.com/wrongful_death.html
Price had initially told police the baby was not breathing when she was born. However, police have said the girl was born at full term, and an autopsy found air in the infant’s lungs, which suggested it would have been breathing. Another Kohl’s employee told police she heard a baby crying in the restroom that day.
Price told police in January during a second interview that she may have suffocated the newborn.
She told police during a three-hour interview in September she learned she was pregnant only one month before giving birth and that when she delivered her daughter, she thought she’d miscarried.
“I found out about a month ago; I had my period the entire time,” she said. “I have had a miscarriage before and it did the same thing, I just was home at the time when I lost the baby last time.”
Price admitted trying to clean the baby off with paper towels and then throwing her newborn daughter in the trash can.
“I picked it up and it wasn’t moving, it wasn’t breathing, and the umbilical cord had already separated and I panicked, I got scared,” she said.
Detective: “And what did you do next?”
Price: “I got the trash bag and I put it in there.”
Price said she could not come up with an answer as to why she did not seek medical attention.
Price has entered a not guilty plea to murder, tampering with evidence and abuse of a corpse. She’s on home incarceration awaiting trial.
