Woman Who Laughed After Drowning Newborn to Death Lied About Not Knowing She Was Pregnant

State   |   Micaiah Bilger   |   May 9, 2016   |   3:50PM   |   Elkart, Indiana

More gruesome details are coming out about an Indiana student who allegedly let her newborn baby drown to death in the bathtub of her college dorm room in March.

Police charged Mikayla P. Munn, 21, of Elkhart, with murder last week after they said she killed her newborn son in her Manchester University dorm, WANE News reports.

This week, The Elkhart Truth reported more gristly details about the scene that emergency responders discovered in Munn’s dorm room on March 8.

According to police and court documents, authorities who first arrived at the scene discovered Munn sitting in red water in her dorm room bathtub, holding her newborn baby in a towel.

She allegedly lied to authorities, telling them she did not realize that she was pregnant. She told university security officers that she thought her labor pains were cramps and she later fainted from the pain.

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When asked about her unborn baby, Munn reportedly told a campus security officer, “Well, last time I checked, he wasn’t breathing.” A coroner’s autopsy report later revealed that the baby had been alive and breathing outside the womb before he died, according to the report.

The local authorities reportedly were disturbed when Munn laughed and did not seem distressed by her baby’s death. One officer’s report called her demeanor “completely wrong.”

Police later launched an investigation and searched Munn’s computers and phone for information related to her pregnancy, according to the newspaper. They found numerous instances where she searched pregnancy-related topics on the internet, and a series of text messages between her and two men, both of whom she told were the father of her baby, according to the report.

Here is more from the report:

In an Oct. 12 text with one of the men, she told him she went to the doctor and found out she was pregnant, and said he was the father. She informed him that she was four months along, but had a miscarriage. She also told him that the sex was determined to be a boy, something investigators say indicates “some form of test was done to determine this.”

She texted a second man during this time, also telling him that he was the father. Munn wrote this man’s name on the baby’s birth certificate.

Through several weeks of conversation, Munn was encouraged by the second man to get an abortion. He provided her with suggestions about going to a clinic to have the abortion. He also was concerned about her well-being — “she appears to be in-and-out of a hospital several times for various reasons.”

In one message, dated Feb. 11 — 26 days before she gave birth — Munn said she was receiving medical assistance to have an abortion. She “indicates to the second man that she will know if it worked in four weeks.”

On March 8, the day she gave birth, police said Munn also researched pregnancy and home birth topics online. Police believe she searched the Internet after giving birth to find ways to tie off the umbilical cord. According to the report, 19 minutes later, she called 911.

Munn told authorities that her baby died after she passed out, but an experienced OB-GYN told the newspaper that he doubts that is true.

“It is apparent (Munn) is using her false lack of knowledge and unconsciousness as an alibi to the truth,” according to the police report. “The truth being she knew she was pregnant and she killed her newborn baby by allowing him to drown in the bathtub.”

If convicted, the 21-year-old could face 45 to 65 years in prison for murder, 20 to 40 years for child neglect causing death, and fines, according to the report.

Reports of infanticide are horrific, and they serve as a reminder of the equally horrific, life-destroying practice of abortion. While infanticide is illegal, abortion is permitted through all nine months of pregnancy in some states. Roe v. Wade, along with its companion case Doe v. Bolton, opened the doors to legalized abortion for any reason through all nine months of pregnancy. The Centers for Disease Control reports at least 7,325 abortions were done on late-term babies in 2011 in 39 of the 50 states.

Just like with abortion, women have life-affirming alternatives to infanticide. All 50 states have safe haven laws that allow women in crisis to abandon their newborns in a safe environment such as a fire station or hospital, without questions or repercussions. Pro-lifers are working to raise awareness about these laws to help protect newborns from abandonment and death.

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