A woman from Pennsylvania was imprisoned without deposit Sunday after four dead babies were found hidden in bags in all her rental house after being expelled, the state police announced.
Jessica Marie Mauthe, 39, was charged Thursday by a leader of criminal homicide and manslaughter, and four charges to conceal the death of a child and abuse of a corpse, the state of Pennsylvania said in a statement.
Owner Brent Flanigan had expelled Mauthe from his house in the canton of Cardogan, about 35 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, on August 14 after paying the rent for almost a year, he told the police. On August 30, he changed the locks.
Last Saturday, while Flanigan and a worker cleaned the house for the next tenant, they noticed a foul smell emanating from a trash bag in a chamber cupboard.
“I just knew it was something bad. I knew there was something dead in there,” Flanigan told Triblive.
Inside was the macabre find, an apparent dead baby. He called the police, who found two other bodies in an attic after interviewed Mauthe. She told the police that she had given birth about a year earlier in the toilet, according to the leader Times, citing a affidavit and a complaint.
“She could hear the child to make several noises,” the police wrote, according to Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “Mauthe removed the child from the toilet, wrapped a towel around the whole body of the infant, where he stayed until he stops causing noises.”
Then she put the body wrapped in towels in garbage bags and hid it in the closet, she told the police, and said there were two others in the attic. She said that after the first birth, which, according to the authorities, occurred about six years ago, she passed out above the newborn and found her dead when she woke up. These disclosure led to its initial arrest last Saturday.
Police found another set of remains for infants, bringing the total to four and leading to the last series of accusations, the state of Pennsylvania announced.
Mauthe also raised two boys, aged 6 and 8, while her husband, Jacob Mauthe, is serving a prison sentence after pleading guilty last year in Dui and endangered the well-being of children, tribted. Children are now with an extended family.
Investigators said they should always cross Mauthe’s medical records and interview her friends, colleagues and husbands to try to learn how she came at least four children without medical care and without reporting births or deaths. Mauthe must be back in court on Monday.
