Teen With Dead Newborn In Shopping Bag Indicted For Murder

This incident took place two years ago when she was arrested for shop lifting at a store and found her newborn dead in her bag.

Eighteen-year-old Tiona Rodriguez was indicted Thursday by a grand jury on a charge of second-degree murder in the October 2013 death of her newborn son.

But defense lawyer Earl Ward said Rodriguez hadn’t realized she was pregnant, adding that her condition hadn’t been spotted during an annual primary-care checkup a month before the birth.

But she is believed to have made a detour to Victoria Secret in a bid to steal – stuffing items into the same bag that carried her dead son. He described Rodriguez as “a young and confused lady” who panicked after she discovered her baby had died. Ferrari said that the circumstances of the death are unclear, but that Rodriguez had texted her then-boyfriend about smashing or burning the body to disguise what it was. “She may have killed the baby”, she said. Police said the then-17-year-old Rodriguez had given birth to the baby at her friend’s home in Queens the day before, and she brought it with them to the store. Ward said when Rodriguez went into labour, she held the boy in her hands, checked his pulse and breathing, cleaned him off and began to cry. That child didn’t survive.

Prosecutors said the latest baby lived at least a few minutes after being born in 2013.

The charges, filed almost two years after the alleged crime, follow a misdemeanor shoplifting case that was eventually dismissed in a lower court. Appearing in state Supreme Court in Manhattan and addressing the judge in a faint voice, she pleaded not guilty.

Arguing against bail, Ms Ferrari painted a more sinister portrait of Rodriguez, saying she not only plotted the killing weeks in advance, but also stopped off at Victoria’s Secret on the way to dispose of the body.