Teen mom faces murder charge after ‘slicing newborns throat and cutting out his heart with a pocket knife’
A teen mom has been charged with murder in the death of her newborn baby after she sliced the infant’s neck and was caught digging a hole in the backyard of her Georgia home with the intention of burying the body, police said.
Leticia Rodriguez, 17, now faces charges of felony murder and felony aggravated assault with a weapon, in addition to earlier felony charges of concealing a death, abuse of a dead body and abandonment of a dead body, according to the Marietta Police Department.
Officers responded to the teen’s home in Marietta on Sunday and found Rodriguez digging a hole in the backyard and the baby boy dead.
“We did see the mother of the deceased infant digging a hole in the backyard in an attempt to create that situation,” Marietta Police Public Information Officer Chuck McPhilamy said at a Monday press conference.
“The infant was never actually buried,” he clarified.
McPhilamy said Rodriguez had given birth in her home earlier in the day and had no one to help her. About six hours later, the new mom’s uncle found her digging a hole and called the police.
Rodriguez, who was in bad shape and required immediate medical attention due to the “trauma of childbirth,” was taken to Wellstar Kennestone Hospital for treatment, McPhilamy said.
A new probable cause affidavit obtained by WAGA revealed graphic details about the tragic incident.
The teen mom had admitted to police that she used a “sharp knife” to cut the umbilical cord from her baby’s neck after birth, “causing a large laceration” on the child. She then used a pocket knife to “cut out the deceased infant’s heart,” police said.
Rodriguez is then accused of wrapping the newborn in a blanket and then stuffing it inside a grocery bag to conceal his death for about six hours.
“The family has been cooperative with us through this entire investigation, and certainly, our hearts go out to them,” McPhilamy said. “We can’t imagine the trauma that they are going through.”
Neighbors told local news outlets that the family is from Guatemala and had moved in about two years ago, but that they had never noticed a teenage girl.
One of the neighbors, Theresa Neill, said she was shocked by what unfolded just across the street from her home.
“I’ve been here 30 years and nothing like that happened in this neighborhood as far as I know,” Neill told Atlanta First News. “It’s just sad that something like that has shown up and you know my heart goes out to anyone who loses children.”
After Rodriguez was discharged from the hospital, she was booked into the Cobb County Adult Detention Center and is being held without bond.
