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A Phoenix mom who put a newborn baby in the trash was convicted of abuse yesterday. However, she faces retrial on a charge that her actions constitute murder.
In January 2010, Williams delivered a baby in her family’s Phoenix home. According to authorities, none of her family members knew she was pregnant. Rather than take the baby to a hospital, Williams put the newborn in the trash.
Williams later told family members she’d delivered a child and that they could find it in a trash can in front of a vacant house down the street from their home.
Family members rushed to revive the baby but were unsuccessful.
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Williams initially was charged with first-degree murder for the baby’s death, but that charge was later reduced to second-degree murder — a charge on which jurors were hung.
The issue, it seems, is whether the baby was alive when Williams put it in the trash. At the time of the death, police said they believed the baby was alive and that she had “spent some time in her residence with the child before taking it to a vacant house.”
Williams will be sentenced for the child-abuse conviction on June 16. She will be retried for murder on July 5.
