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Uncredited / AP
South Carolina mother Alyssa Dayvault is on trial for placing two of her newborns in garbage bags and throwing them away a year apart.
An American mother on trial for placing two of her newborns in garbage bags and throwing them away a year apart told investigators that she passed out from the pain of giving birth to the second child alone, woke up 15 minutes later to find that the boy’s face was blue.
Alyssa Dayvault of South Carolina did not appear at trial this week on two counts of child abuse manslaughter, but the case is moving forward in Horry County court with her defense attorneys.
Prosecutors played on Wednesday (local time) a recording of Dayvault’s interview with police, whom they called after Dayvault showed up at the hospital with an infection caused when she failed to deliver the placenta along with the baby in December. 2018.
Dayvault told investigators in the recording that she concealed the pregnancy from both her longtime boyfriend and her mother. She said she gave birth to the baby alone at her North Myrtle Beach home. And after he passed out from the pain and discovered the unconscious baby, he put it in a garbage bag and threw it away, the recording showed.
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Dayvault also told investigators that this had happened before. In November 2017, she said, she also gave birth alone, this time to a girl, and dumped her body after the baby had her umbilical cord wrapped around her neck, the court heard.
She also hid the pregnancy that time, and there were no complications, so no one knew. He did not go into details about that birth in the body camera video, which was shown on Wednesday during the first day of testimony.
Dayvault first denied having a baby when she was questioned, but when pressured by investigators, she began crying in the video.
They asked her why she threw the babies and she said that her boyfriend did not want children and that she was afraid of how her mother would react. Dayvault has two other grown children.
“Ï I wasn’t thinking. I was not. I was too scared, “Dayvault said, barely understandable as she cried in the video.
“This is not a murder trial,” prosecutor Josh Holford said in his opening statement Wednesday. “We do not have sufficient evidence to prove that the defendant intentionally killed her babies. We are not saying that she intentionally suffocated her babies.”
Instead, Holford said, prosecutors would prove that Dayvault showed “extreme disregard for human life” because she did not seek anyone’s care for her newborns.
“She didn’t leave that girl at the fire station. She did not give the girl up for adoption. He did not ask his mother to take care of the girl. He just threw this baby in the trash, “Holford said.
Public defender Sharde Crawford told the jury that she doesn’t think prosecutors can prove Dayvault doesn’t care about babies at all.
Crawford said there would be a number of unanswered questions when the testimony was completed, including “what evidence has the state shown that will prove the cause of death?”
The court ended early Wednesday because the last witness for the prosecution was a doctor who was treating patients and was unable to go to court until Thursday.
The judge suggested that the jury could get the case before the end of Thursday.
Dayvault faces life in prison if convicted. She was out on bail and has not been to court this week, from the jury selection on Monday to the first day of testimony on Wednesday. Her attorneys planned a full defense even without her there.
An arrest warrant has been issued against her. If Dayvault is found guilty, the judge will seal her sentence until she is found and brought to court.
