Infant Skeleton Found in Suitcase

[snopes]

An infant's skeleton was found in a suitcase by adult siblings cleaning out their elderly mother's house after she died.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...TAM&SECTION=US

[moonfall]

I swear I saw this on Law & Order: SVU at one point.

[Lady Neeva]

As I recall the SVU episode, the body was in a trunk and the sister didn't so much "find" it as know it was there all along but chose to block out the memory with drugs and such. And the mother blamed her for killing the toddler (I think in the SVU show it was a toddler not an infant anyway).

Oh, and in the show, the SVU got involved when a finger bone was found in the drug addict sister's possession during an arrest on another matter if I recall correctly.

I wonder why it was under the bed? I couldn't sleep in a bed knowing that my dead infant was underneath.

[snopes]

An infant's skeleton found in a dead woman's suitcase was born at 35 weeks gestation, but authorities don't know its gender or how long it had been there.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...TAM&SECTION=US

Sounds to me that it was a case of a stillborn baby. I lost two babies myself, at 10 weeks 2 days and 5 weeks...my heart is breaking for this woman...she had to live with this for so long and had no where to turn. And she kept this a secret for so long!!! I can't imagine what she was going through, mentally.

This story made my local news.

[AliBaba]

Sounds to me that it was a case of a stillborn baby. I lost two babies myself, at 10 weeks 2 days and 5 weeks...my heart is breaking for this woman...she had to live with this for so long and had no where to turn. And she kept this a secret for so long!!! I can't imagine what she was going through, mentally.

I'm very sorry for the losses that you suffered, Valley's, but I'm wondering if perhaps you might be projecting just a bit? I'm just wondering where you're getting all that in the last part of your quote, that the woman had to live with it and had no where to turn. I read the linked article but didn't get any of that from it. Maybe I'm missing something?

AliBaba

Support-wise, I'm meaning...I'm assuming she had no where to turn. Since her own adult children knew nothing of the infant, I am guessing the woman got no support from an outside source following her loss...not to mention that the infant would be an adult now...and things back then were a lot different then they are now. Now there are places online for support, etc. Stillbirths and miscarriages 50 years ago (or even 30 years ago, in the case of my MIL) were handled much differently than they are now. Things were just swept under the rug, or in this case, under the bed.

[AliBaba]

Okay, I see what you're saying. But unless I missed something in the article, and my math is faulty, it seems like it says that they have not yet determined how long the child lived, if at all. I mean, it's just as possible that instead of a miscarriage or stillbirth, this could also be a case of cold blooded murder, couldn't it? You may have a kinder heart than me. I'm withholding judgment - although it's possible they may never be able to make a final determination on cause of death.

If I have sympathy for anyone, it's for the woman's grown children, who may now have to live with the possibility that their mother may have been a murderer.

AliBaba

[Dr. Dave]

A third alternative to stillbirth or murder is that it could have died a few months after birth. Fifty or sixty years ago, infant death- from infection especially- was more common than it is today.

[DemonWolf]

Originally Posted by Dr. Dave

A third alternative to stillbirth or murder is that it could have died a few months after birth. Fifty or sixty years ago, infant death- from infection especially- was more common than it is today.

Or SIDS. SIDS was far more common and less understood. Back then Doctors also told parents that the baby should sleep on its belly so that it doesn't choke if it vomits in its sleep. Today doctors reccommend having babies sleep on their backs.

[AliBaba]

Oh absolutely. I didn't mean to make it sound as though the only possible cause of death was murder. But, had the baby died of natural causes...why stuff it in a suitcase? That's the part that sets my alarms off.

I suppose a grief-stricken mother, having lost her child either due to miscarriage or stillbirth might react in a way that the rest of the world thinks odd or macabre, and be unable to bear the idea of parting with her baby's body. (Unless you have actually suffered the loss of a child, I don't think you can say how you'll react.) But I somehow doubt that that same person could callously stuff the bones into a suitcase.

And, an inexperienced mother, whose baby had died of SIDS or something might panic and hide the body.

It just seems to me to me that finding the skeleton in a suitcase would arouse suspicion of foul play.

And of course, there's always the possibility that the woman the suitcase belonged to had no knowledge of the bones being there. Maybe another person (her husband? Sibling? Even one of the kids?) put it there without her knowledge. Seems possible we may never know.

Just seems like a crappy way to dispose of remains, no matter what the cause of death.

AliBaba

[Ezri]

That was a good SVU episode, but I digress.

I have to ask though, wouldn't someone notice a baby was missing? OR that someone got pregnant and did not have the child and all of a sudden wasn't pregnant any more? Shouldn't that have been enough to arouse suspicion?

[Furienna]

Well, back in the day, when unmarried mothers still were considered sinners and even their children were treated badly, many of these women managed to hide their pregnancies. So the pregnancy might very well have been secret. I just wonder whose baby it was, and why they put it in a suitcase. If someone would have killed a baby, they should have buried it somewhere, not kept it in a suitcase. And if the baby died of natural causes, why not let it be buried it at a cemetary?