Just came across this story on the local news stations website...
Woman confesses to tossing newborn into lake to hide pregnancy
088 AM CST on Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Chad Bower and Tom Planchet / Eyewitness News
KENNER, La. -- A Metairie woman turned herself into police and confessed that she threw her newborn baby into Lake Pontchartrain, with the umbilical cord still attached, so that she could hide her pregnancy from her parents.
The 20-year-old mother, whose name has not yet been released, turned herself into police Tuesday night, according to Brian McGregor, a Kenner Police Department spokesman.
"She came here to the police department on her own free will," McGregor said, adding that her parents accompanied her.
McGregor said that the woman confessed to throwing the baby into the lake to hide the pregnancy from her parents. She said that she may have felt a heartbeat and that the baby was breathing, according to McGregor.
If the baby was in fact alive before being tossed into the lake, McGregor said that the department would pursue a first-degree murder charge. He added that after an autopsy is completed, the nature of the death will be known. An autopsy is expected to be performed on the baby Wednesday.
"She's coherent. She understands what she has done, and she realizes she's going to have to face the consequences for what she did, and she told us that," McGregor said. Shes remorseful for what she did, she feels theres other avenues that she should have taken for this.
McGregor said that the parents suspected the woman was pregnant, but she denied that she was.
Police said that they received a tip from someone at an apartment complex who had seen a woman pull into a parking lot and throw some things into a garbage can. The person who gave the tip said that the car seemed to match reports of the car that the woman had been driving.
Police went to the complex and looked inside the garbage can, where they found the mother's placenta, McGregor said.
Earlier today, Kenner Police Chief Steve Caraway said a baby girl's dead body was retrieved from Lake Pontchartrain near the Williams Boulevard Boat Launch with the umbilical cord still attached.
Caraway said witnesses around 1:30 p.m. told police they saw a woman casually walk up to the water and toss something in, and then turn around and casually walk away, getting back into her car and driving away.
Caraway said the witnesses went to the area where the woman had tossed in the object and found a child lying face down in the water with the umbilical cord still attached.
"I couldn't believe that there actually was a human body in there," said Elliott Lew, a park supervisor of the area. "It is going to leave me with a little bit of nightmares, most probably."
Caraway said there were many witnesses at the scene when it happened, and that they got a good look at the woman.
Its a shame. I mean, whats this world coming to? said Chris Bayer, who was a witness of the incident. I mean, its pathetic. Its really pathetic. Why would she have done a thing like that?
The mother is currently in the hospital being treated.
"Theres no way to explain this, theres no way to justify this," said Caraway. "Nothing can be so bad in your life to lead you to do something like this. This was a full-term, female baby, absolutely gorgeous. The umbilical cord was still somewhat attached."
