Angelica Swartout told family her newborn baby was stillborn [Archive]

jenny7795

December 10th, 2010, 02:50 AM

http://img813.imageshack.us/img813/3546/angelicaswartout.jpg (http://img813.imageshack.us/i/angelicaswartout.jpg/)

SPRINGFIELD, Ore. -- The family of 23-year-old Angelica May Swartout told police that the artistic, musical young lady was happy to be pregnant.

“She wasn’t excited about the pregnancy in the beginning,” said Springfield Police Department Sgt. David Lewis. “But in the latter part of the pregnancy she was quite excited about having a child.”

But police said Swartout’s pregnancy came and went without a baby. According to Springfield police, Swartout reached full-term pregnancy in mid-October when she went into labor, but she told her family that the child was still-born.

According to a SPD affidavit, on Oct. 18 Swartout went into labor and delivered a baby boy. Police said Swartout went into labor while at work alone at Crossland Economy Studios in Springfield.

Police said she gave birth in the employee washroom, then wrapped the live baby in a dirty bed sheet from the laundry room and smothered him until she was sure he was dead. Police said she then disposed of the body in the dumpster outside of the motel.

But that day Swartout told her family a different story. Swartout told police she sent a text message to her sister when she arrived at work and told her sister that she was at the hospital to deliver the baby. She told her sister that doctors had determined that the child had no heartbeat and was going to induce labor.

Police said Swartout returned home that night and told her sister the story about the stillborn and sent her a text message photo of a dead baby she found on the Internet and claimed the child was her baby.

Police allege Swartout had considered murdering her child when it was born several weeks before she gave birth.

Police said prior to the birth, Swartout had researched stillbirth babies and symptoms associated with various pregnancy maladies.

Police said Swartout kept up the lie for about two months before her family approached SPD on Tuesday. Police quickly began their investigation by questioning Swartout. Through their investigation they learned of how she had killed the baby and disposed of him in a trash bin.
Police said given the time that has passed since Swartout placed the infant in the trash bin, they do not been able to find the body.

Police said they will begin to assess the feasibility of conducting a search at the Lane County landfill.

Family members said their primary concern is finding the body and to give the baby a proper burial.

http://www.kval.com/news/local/111640064.html

jenny7795

December 10th, 2010, 03:00 AM

http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/8028/swartout0.jpg (http://img46.imageshack.us/i/swartout0.jpg/)

Police arrested a Springfield woman Wednesday for killing her baby boy the day he was born.

Angelica May Swartout, 23, is in Lane County Jail and faces aggravated murder charges.

Springfield police said Swartout gave birth to Lucias Scott Swartout on Oct. 18. The birth did not happen at a hospital or under any medical supervision.

Police said Swartout told family members that her baby had died at birth.

Instead, police said Swartout concealed the child and placed him in a Dumpster of a local busineses.

Anyone with information about this crime is encouraged to contact the Springfield Police Depart Investigative Services Bureau.

Dakota Valkyrie

December 10th, 2010, 09:37 AM

Whatthehell??? Did she just not want to "be a mom" or have the "baby" come looking her up in 18 years?

I can't even wrap my brain about where she thought she was going with this.

Dakota Valkyrie

December 10th, 2010, 09:43 AM

Now, family members — whose doubts about Swartout’s original story regarding the baby’s death led to her arrest on Wednesday — say they want nothing more than to find her son’s body and give him a proper burial.

“I want to find my nephew,” Springfield resident Jewel Sward said. Like Swartout, Sward was adopted as a child by Dennis and RuthAnne Swartout.

“My first priority is to bring him home. He deserves better than this,” Sward said of the baby, whose mother named him Lucias Scott Swartout.

Investigators share Sward’s interest in finding the newborn’s body — both for the family’s sake, as well as for evidentiary reasons as Swartout’s murder case unfolds.
[...]

It’s a story that both police and Swartout’s family say they believe, even if the details are difficult to comprehend.

“It’s one of those things you never understand,” Lewis said. “I don’t think normal people can understand this.”
[...]

Sward said that at first, she didn’t suspect that the story was false. But as Swartout’s behavior became more erratic during the past two months, Sward said she felt she needed to help her sister find closure in the baby’s death.

Sward said she called Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend to inquire about the newborn, but was told they had no record of Swartout ever being admitted. Then on Monday, she spoke with a medical examiner who informed her that no autopsy of the baby was ever performed.

Sward said the medical examiner advised her to contact police, which she did.

“I didn’t hesitate to do it,” Sward said, recalling that when she spoke with Lewis on Tuesday, she told him, “I don’t know if this is a crime, but this isn’t adding up.”

Swartout’s large adoptive family could not keep her from developing a methamphetamine habit that Lewis said continued through the early months of her pregnancy.

Although investigators believe that the baby’s father did not remain in contact with Swartout after she became pregnant, they still want to locate and interview him, Lewis said.
[...]

Sward said she has about 70 siblings, most of whom were adopted during the past several decades by her mother — who continued taking in children from around the world after her first husband died and she remarried. RuthAnne and her second husband, Thomas Staley, moved from Springfield to Bend about four years ago, according to Staley’s father, a Goshen area resident.
[...]

Sward said her family continues to support Swart*out despite the murder allegation.

“We love her and we want her to know that,” Sward said. “We also want her to know that we are seeking the truth. We’re grieving with love in our hearts for her, and sorrow for the position she’s put herself in.”
http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/web/news/cityregion/25646820-41/swartout-police-sward-baby-family.csp

Miss Anthrope

December 10th, 2010, 01:01 PM

Wow - She named the baby she murdered? I just can't wrap my head around this one. Everyone just took her word that the baby was stillborn? Don't they hold funerals for stillborn babies? What did they think happened to the babies body? Did they think the hospital just threw it away or something?

Her family adopts a plethora of children during their lifetime and this methhead idiot learns nothing from them about the sanctity and value of a child's life?

ImmortalOne

December 10th, 2010, 01:19 PM

So she was adopted and didn't want that for the baby? I don't get it. This bitch needs to be sterilized now. Her actions should be 1st degree, she planned it. While looking up stillborn information while pregnant is not in and itself unusual she planned that baby's death. Today I will hold my babies tighter.

jenny7795

December 10th, 2010, 05:31 PM

Oregon has a safe haven law, so there was one option she could have chosen. And with her mother adopting so many children over the years, don't you think the mom would want this baby as well? guess none of that makes sense to a meth addict. poor little baby.

AngelFire

December 10th, 2010, 07:23 PM

“It’s one of those things you never understand,” Lewis said. “I don’t think normal people can understand this.”

You got that right. I will never understand this, and all those other horrible crimes, and for that I am forever thankful.

Bohring

December 10th, 2010, 07:37 PM

Pene784

December 10th, 2010, 11:29 PM

Did she not feel her baby deserved to be adopted family like she was?

AHotMess

December 11th, 2010, 12:39 AM

When i first read this i was angry, then i realized...she was a meth addict. Meth is a hell of a drug. i am in no way making excuses for her behaviour, but meth changes the actual chemistry of your brain, it makes people do things they would never even think of doing if they had never touched meth...that shit is evil.

I hope they find that sweet baby..there were so many more options, this is truly sad

jenny7795

December 11th, 2010, 08:30 PM

http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/9683/swartoutfamily.jpg (http://img227.imageshack.us/i/swartoutfamily.jpg/)

SPRINGFIELD, Ore.—When family members tried to help Swartout with funeral arrangements, they couldn't find any birth records at the hospital, nor could they find any record of his death. That's when Swartout's sister, Jewel Sward, knew something was wrong. Sward contacted Sergeant David Lewis with Springfield Police on December 7th. The next day, police took her sister into custody. After Swartout confessed to taking the baby's life, she was charged with aggravated murder.

Swartout herself named Lucias Scott and now the family is coping with the possibility that his mother is responsible for his death.

"It's hard to wrap our minds around it," said Sward. She says she doesn't remember this person as her sister. "This just doesn't happen."

According to Swartout's older sister, Sward says she never thought her sister was capable of doing the unthinkable. Sward says her sister has struggled with drugs throughout her life, but in the past couple of months, Swartout had made great progress including holding a steady job and a home. But it was the consistency and stability that many of her sixty-four adopted brothers and sisters say scared Swartout.

Now Springfield Police are shifting their investigation to the Short Mountain Landfill.

Sgt. Lewis says officials have stopped processing garbage where investigators have narrowed down an approximately two-acre area where Lucias' remains could be located.

Chief Deputy Medical Examiner Frank Ratti was also contacted by Jewel Sward after she found no records of Swartout's baby. According to Ratti, search and rescue crews have a difficult and dangerous job ahead of them, saying if they do find the body, likely it could be decomposed and dismantled.

"This morning I had to tell my seven-year-old what had happened," said Sward. "She sat there and thought about it for awhile and said, 'Mom, I'm really mad at Aunt Angie but is it okay if I still love her?' and I said, 'Yeah,' 'cause that's how we all feel."

Angelica's sisters' main concern is a difficult request: giving Lucias the funeral he deserves.

"It's probably worse than the proverbial needle in a haystack," said Sgt. Lewis.

But his order is not to stop searching until they find the baby's remains. Swartout's sisters say they won't be giving up hope.

"I can't ignore the fact that Lucias did not have a voice and he needs someone to stand up for him."

http://www.kval.com/news/local/111703314.html

Dakota Valkyrie

December 11th, 2010, 11:53 PM

Landfill Search

Saturday was day one of the search, and just to give you an idea of how much bigger the challenge is than they thought, the area they're searching has 4,000 dump loads of garbage.

Saturday morning, they got throught just one dump load with 15 crew members searching.
[...]

Aside from working in pouring rain, Springfield Police Sergeant David Lewis says another problem is that all the garbage is one color. Plus it's all compacted and very tight, making it very difficult to pull apart.

Police and Lane County Search and Rescue are looking for a beige colored bed sheet amid all the debris, which is what police say Angelica Swartout wrapped her son in before discarding his body.
[...]

Crews will spend the next two days out there. Lewis says if they don't find the body, they'll reassess their plan and at some point, look at the feasibility of even finishing the search.

Swartout currently sits in jail facing murder charges.

Lewis says if they don't find the baby, they'll still have ample evidence to "prove what happened, happened."
http://kezi.com/news/local/197514

Dakota Valkyrie

December 14th, 2010, 08:51 AM

After three full days of work, Springfield police on Monday suspended a painstaking search of the county landfill for the body of a baby boy whose mother allegedly killed him in October.

Investigators knew before the outset that chances were slim they would find Lucias Scott Swartout’s remains amid tons of wet, compacted trash in a 2-acre section of the Short Mountain Landfill near Goshen.
[...]

“The disappointing thing to me is that I would have liked to have found the little guy, not so much for (evidence in) the case, but for the family,” Springfield police Sgt. David Lewis said.

Swartout’s older sister, Jewel Sward of Springfield, said the family had realistic expectations about the landfill search.

“We’re disappointed, but we knew it was a long shot at best,” Sward said. “It was a hard job, and we appreciate the time they did put in.”
[...]

Police had said that locating the body would help in the criminal case.

In most cases in Oregon law, a person’s confession alone is not sufficient grounds for conviction. However, the law appears to include several exceptions that could apply to a case such as Swartout’s.

Lewis has said that Lane County prosecutors have gained murder convictions in cases where investigators did not recover a victim’s body.
http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/web/news/cityregion/25663703-41/police-search-swartout-body-landfill.csp

WhatThe

December 14th, 2010, 09:13 AM

jenny7795

September 29th, 2011, 03:56 AM

The attorney for Angelica Swartout, the Springfield woman charged with killing her newborn son, is seeking to use the results of a forensic test to bolster her claim that she never had the baby.

A recent test failed to detect blood in the motel bathroom where Swartout allegedly gave birth and suffocated her child nearly a year earlier, according to a court motion filed Tuesday by Swartout’s attorney, Gordon Mallon of Silverton.

The test was conducted last week by forensic scientist Michael Howard of La Grande in the office bathroom of the Crossland Economy Studios on Harlow Road in Springfield, where Swartout worked.

“There were areas where he would have expected to find blood traces even now had a birth occurred in this room,” Mallon wrote in the motion. “Of course, the evidence would have been much stronger had the police done even a rudimentary investigation of the crime scene at the time of the initial arrest of our client.”

Since June, however, Swartout’s lawyers have claimed that she confessed under pressure from police and never had the baby.

In Tuesday’s motion, Mallon wrote that Swartout had a positive pregnancy test in January 2010, which indicated a possible birth date in mid-October.

Swartout told relatives about her pregnancy and for the “first time in her life she received the love and focused attention that in her family goes out to babies and their mothers,” Mallon wrote.

But a later pregnancy test proved negative, he wrote. “She did not tell her sister or any of the rest of her family that she was not pregnant. She could not, at that point, give up the showers of love and attention that were pouring down on her from her family,” he wrote.

As October approached, Swartout began to think of ways she could “bring her masquerade to completion” without having to produce a baby “because, of course, there was no baby.” Mallon said.

Swartout told a sister that she had a stillbirth at a hospital, Mallon wrote. When relatives grew suspicious, “she changed her story” and said she gave birth on Oct. 18 in the motel bathroom.

Swartout, 23, is in Lane County Jail. Her trial is scheduled to begin Jan. 10 before Lane County Circuit Judge Suz*anne Chanti.

In June, Chanti refused to free Swartout after Mallon argued that prosecutors lacked evidence supporting Swartout’s confession to police that she delivered and then suffocated a baby boy.

http://www.registerguard.com/web/newslocalnews/26952240-46/swartout-mallon-police-baby-birth.html.csp

Dakota Valkyrie

September 29th, 2011, 07:03 AM

...to bolster her claim that she never had the baby.
[....]

Since June, however, Swartout’s lawyers have claimed that she confessed under pressure from police and never had the baby.

WHAT!!!!! No baby?

This takes "Attention Whore" to a whole new level!

krissytan

September 29th, 2011, 07:56 AM

Uh oh!

princessgrandma

September 29th, 2011, 08:54 AM

Some days I read this shit and all I can think is "fucking bitch!" or "fucking tweaker!" or "fucking douchebag!", etc, ad naseum. Those kinds of posts don't seem very useful. However...

Fucking bitch!

I was quoting this for truth from back when it was said she had the baby and threw him away like so much garbage, but it still applies.... lying about being pregnant, then lying about having a stillborn baby. Anyone who has lost a baby would resent someone doing something like this. Shit, anyone would. I lost my first, and I didn't even know I was pregnant until after the surgery, when some insensitive bastard of a "counsellor" came in and asked me, "How does it feel, having lost a baby?" I was like, WTF??

Fucking bitch.....

Obsolete

September 29th, 2011, 12:08 PM

I was at this same landfill a few months back and made a comment to my hubby about the possibility of a baby being in there somewhere, he stared at me, shook his head and told me to get back in the fucking truck while he unloaded the rest of the shit.

Hellsbells

November 9th, 2011, 05:53 AM

Tattoos latest twist in murder case
Motions are filed in the case of a woman accused of killing her newborn baby

An already unusual Lane County murder case has taken another odd twist, with lawyers for a Springfield woman accused of killing her newborn son filing a motion asking that jurors in her upcoming murder trial be allowed to view tattoos on the backs of her adoptive sisters.

Angelica May Swartout, 24, faces aggravated murder charges for allegedly delivering and then suffocating a baby boy in October 2010. Investigators didn’t find an infant’s body, and the state has no evidence that Swartout actually gave birth to a son in a restroom at her hotel workplace, as she told detectives last December, her attorneys have argued.

Her sisters, Jewel Sward and Lillianne Swartout, are expected to testify for the state that Angelica Swartout was in the late stages of pregnancy just before the alleged crime.

The defense team contends she never had a child. They say her alleged late-stage pregnancy was a charade designed to maintain the affection and support she began receiving from family members after a positive pregnancy test in January 2010.

In the newest motion filed last week, Mallon said multiple witnesses told a defense investigator that both Sward and Lillianne Swartout have had the word “Lucias” tattooed on their backs.

“Lucias is the name which Jewel Sward claims was given to the alleged fetus which Ms. Sward believed was carried by her adopted sister, the defendant,” he wrote in the motion.

The fact that Sward and Lillianne Swartout tattooed that name on their bodies shows that “they have an interest in trying to prove that there was in fact a person named ‘Lucias’ who was borne by the defendant,” Mallon wrote.

Jurors should be aware of that “bias,” he charged. He said previous Oregon court rulings held that “the interest of a witness in the outcome of a case will slant the witness’ testimony.”

Mallon also argued that “descriptions or photographs will not serve to show (the sisters’) interest as well as the actual tattoos will.”

The tattoo motion was among other pretrial filings from both sides regarding the role of Angelica Swartout’s sisters in the case.
http://www.registerguard.com/web/newslocalnews/27145770-41/swartout-case-motion-sward-angelica.html.csp

Tundratot

November 9th, 2011, 06:05 AM

I can't make sense of this. I'm going to read it again in the morning and see if I can figure it out then. :hmmmm2:

tmdgirl

November 9th, 2011, 08:48 AM

The defense team contends she never had a child. They say her alleged late-stage pregnancy was a charade designed to maintain the affection and support she began receiving from family members after a positive pregnancy test in January 2010.

In the newest motion filed last week, Mallon said multiple witnesses told a defense investigator that both Sward and Lillianne Swartout have had the word “Lucias” tattooed on their backs.

“Lucias is the name which Jewel Sward claims was given to the alleged fetus which Ms. Sward believed was carried by her adopted sister, the defendant,” he wrote in the motion.

The fact that Sward and Lillianne Swartout tattooed that name on their bodies shows that “they have an interest in trying to prove that there was in fact a person named ‘Lucias’ who was borne by the defendant,” Mallon wrote.

Jurors should be aware of that “bias,” he charged. He said previous Oregon court rulings held that “the interest of a witness in the outcome of a case will slant the witness’ testimony.”

Mallon also argued that “descriptions or photographs will not serve to show (the sisters’) interest as well as the actual tattoos will.”

The lawyer is an ass. He's basically implying that the sisters will lie to prove there was a baby...all because they got tattoos of a baby's name BASED ON THEIR SISTER'S OWN LIES.

Whether the bitch really had a baby or not, she is definitely one sick individual...either for killing him and dumping him out like trash or for carrying out an elaborate fraud just to get attention. She should go to jail either way.

princessgrandma

November 9th, 2011, 11:06 AM

I swear.... what a whackjob.

OK, first you're pregnant and not excited about it, then later you get excited about it (was this when she had definitely decided what she would do when the baby was born? If it wasn't born dead, she'd make it so), then you give birth in a bathroom, throw the baby out like garbage. When you find out that your family is more sympathetic to the fact that you had a baby in the first place, the charade is back on, and the sisters go running to the tattoo shop to have the name of the dead baby put on their backs. A tattoo of the name of a baby that now NEVER EVEN EXISTED? Man, there are charades and then there are charades.

This bitch has taken it to a different level. There is no doubt in my mind that there WAS a baby, but he will never be found. She doesn't have mental or emotional problems. Damn.... she's right up there with Casey Anthony in the pathological department.

Dakota Valkyrie

November 9th, 2011, 11:27 AM

Her picture is gone so here's replacements:

http://i0.simplest-image-hosting.net/168bf183b2abe8bc9188aacc163dd507/20111109-02.jpg http://i0.simplest-image-hosting.net/168bf183b2abe8bc9188aacc163dd507/20111109-03.jpg

MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/darka_licious/photos

Obsolete

November 9th, 2011, 01:01 PM

There is no doubt in my mind that there WAS a baby, but he will never be found.

Based on what? Women lie about being pregnant to get attention all the time...maybe this woman wasn't ready to give up the lie and figured she would get even more attention by claiming the baby died at birth. This doesn't seem that far fetched to me.

penelopejo

November 9th, 2011, 01:21 PM

Is there not a way to tell if a woman had a baby a month and a half ago(at the time they arrested her only a month-two months had passed)? I could swear the doctor said I could still have what they call "aftershocks" of contractions after birth for up to two months. Did they not perform a test like this?

And I agree with Obs. I have known girls in high school who claim pregnancy, then miscarriage after three weeks so their boyfriends don't leave them. If she truly loved the attention, I can see why she went through and claimed stillborn so she could receive even more sympathy.

Tundratot

November 9th, 2011, 01:37 PM

Obsolete

November 9th, 2011, 02:12 PM

What kind of sympathy could she be sure of receiving for delivering her baby in a restroom and throwing it away? Okay, maybe she couldn't help the place of delivery, but surely the trashing the body part of the scene is going to cost her some of the sympathy she was enjoying.

But that isn't what she told her family. She told them she delivered the baby at the hospital and it was stillborn. She didn't make up the other story until the police began to question her and she realized she couldn't fool the cops. Maybe at that point she felt that telling the cops she smothered the baby was better than admitting to her family that she had been duping them all this time.

Bohring

November 9th, 2011, 02:25 PM

I was quoting this for truth from back when it was said she had the baby and threw him away like so much garbage, but it still applies.... lying about being pregnant, then lying about having a stillborn baby. Anyone who has lost a baby would resent someone doing something like this. Shit, anyone would. I lost my first, and I didn't even know I was pregnant until after the surgery, when some insensitive bastard of a "counsellor" came in and asked me, "How does it feel, having lost a baby?" I was like, WTF??

Fucking bitch.....

I'm sorry, that is truly awful. I miscarried my first at 11 weeks, and it was probably the worst thing I've ever been through in my entire life. To lie about losing a baby just to get love and attention - ugh. You are correct, I indeed resent the hell out of her. Fucking bitch indeed.

Robynne

November 9th, 2011, 03:26 PM

Dakota Valkyrie

November 9th, 2011, 03:42 PM

I know that when a dead body of a woman is found, testing can be done to see if the woman has given birth in their lifetime. So why could they not do some ultrasounds and other tests to prove if she had ever been pregnant or given birth. Your body never returns to it's original form after having a child.
I am pretty sure there is some way to tell if a woman's ever given birth BUT can the state force you into doing the testing? I dunno. Wouldn't that be a violation of Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination? It's the state's job to prove a crime was committed but you don't have to help them do it.

The link that HB provided has been updated to include the last two paragraphs of this quote:

The defense team contends she never had a child. They say her alleged late-stage pregnancy was a charade designed to maintain the affection and support she began receiving from family members after a positive pregnancy test in January 2010.

A local Planned Parenthood doctor testified in a June pretrial hearing that Swartout had a negative pregnancy test in late March 2010, when the alleged murder victim would have been a third-month fetus if born full-term in October. Swartout falsely told her family that she delivered a still-born son at a local hospital in October 2010 as a way to end her “masquerade,” defense attorney Gordon Mallon said at another pretrial hearing last month.

Mallon and co-counsel Eve*lyn Oldencamp argued then that Swartout made a bogus confession under pressure from Springfield police during two days of interviews last December. But Lane County Circuit Judge Suzanne Chanti denied a defense motion to keep the confession from jurors when Swartout’s trial begins Jan. 10.http://www.registerguard.com/web/newslocalnews/27145770-41/swartout-case-motion-sward-angelica.html.csp

Can they even prove, at this point, that there was a baby to kill?

penelopejo

November 9th, 2011, 03:50 PM

I agree with you DV, but she is trying to say that she never was pregnant to begin with. To give herself more credibility, wouldn't her defense team have already asked her to do this test to prove she was never with/gave birth to begin with and bolster their defense of giving a bogus confession under pressure? Although I believe that negative pregnancy test would be enough to prove she wasn't, I'd want everything and anything to prove I never gave birth and it was all a lie.

Robynne

November 9th, 2011, 03:50 PM

I was just thinking that if her defense team is saying she didn't have a baby, they could have the tests done as proof.

But this statement will definitely help her case...

A local Planned Parenthood doctor testified in a June pretrial hearing that Swartout had a negative pregnancy test in late March 2010, when the alleged murder victim would have been a third-month fetus if born full-term in October.

All I know is that if she did in fact lie about the pregnancy, I feel it's a hell of a lot better than her having the baby and killing it. I don't agree with the "lie" but I like it better than murder.
Just sayin'

Bohring

November 9th, 2011, 08:36 PM

All I know is that if she did in fact lie about the pregnancy, I feel it's a hell of a lot better than her having the baby and killing it. I don't agree with the "lie" but I like it better than murder. Just sayin'

:beer:

Cheers to that.

Jerri Blank

January 17th, 2012, 08:51 PM

Swartout judge to review police files
Defense lawyers say the personnel material could help clear their 24-year-old client of murder

The judge who will preside over the Jan. 18 murder trial of a Springfield woman accused of smothering a newborn child will review police officer personnel files sought by defense attorneys in the case.

Lane County Circuit Judge Suzanne Chanti decided Friday that she would view the files privately and provide to Angelica Swartout’s defense team any material that could help them clear their client of the murder charge.

The 24-year-old hotel clerk’s lawyers had subpoenaed the records from the city, but City Attorney Matt Cox filed a motion to quash their request, saying the personnel records are protected by privacy laws.

The state alleges that Swartout gave birth to and suffocated a son in the employee restroom of her Springfield workplace in October 2010. Her lawyers say she faked a pregnancy to obtain attention and support from members of her large adoptive family. They presented pretrial testimony from a local doctor that Swartout had a negative pregnancy test six months before the alleged murder.

The defense team contends that she falsely confessed to infanticide under duress of police questioning on two consecutive days. Chanti ruled last year that police obtained the confession legally and that jurors can view it during Swartout’s upcoming aggravated murder trial.

Springfield Police Chief Jerry Smith on Friday delivered the personnel files sought by the defense to a court clerk, carrying the binders and folding files in a large cardboard box.

The defense subpoenaed the records of five officers: four who investigated the Swartout case and another officer that Swartout’s lawyers say may have had an inappropriate interaction with a key state witness in the case.

They alleged they had information that Larry Turner showed inappropriate leniency following a traffic stop of the witness, Swartout’s sister Jewel Sward, because of her importance to the state’s case.

They did not detail the alleged leniency. But a document filed in a divorce proceeding between Sward and her husband includes his allegation that an unnamed Springfield officer stopped Sward in the summer of 2011 on suspicion of drunken driving, but she “was let go” because she is “an important witness for the State in a capital murder case” and because she had had previous contact with the officer. Ironically, that document was filed by Cox, who also initially represented Jewel Sward in her divorce case. He has a general law practice that includes domestic relations cases, as well as handling Springfield’s legal matters. He filed the document in September, in support of a motion to withdraw from representing Jewel Sward in the divorce case, due to a conflict of interest raised by her husband’s allegation against a city employee.

Police Chief Smith said Friday that “no special consideration” was given to Sward by his officers due to her role as a witness in the murder case.

“It’s untrue,” he said of Jeffrey Sward’s allegation.

Smith on Friday reviewed records of his department’s interaction’s with Sward, and found that her only contact with Springfield police last summer was a citation for driving while uninsured. That citation was not issued by Turner, Smith added.
http://www.registerguard.com/web/newslocalnews/27181305-41/swartout-case-police-murder-defense.html.csp

Dakota Valkyrie

January 25th, 2012, 09:23 AM

A recent doctor’s exam showed signs that alleged child-killer Angelica “Angie” Swartout experienced a full-term pregnancy and childbirth, Deputy Lane County District Attorney Bob Lane told a jury in opening statements at her aggravated murder trial Monday.

That exam, obtained last month with a warrant to search Swartout’s body, showed a vertical line of darkened skin on her lower belly — a phenomenon of advanced pregnancy — and cervical changes consistent with having pushed out a baby, Lane told jurors.

But defense lawyer Eve Oldenkamp told the panel that the same doctor will testify that she can’t be sure Swartout gave birth. Oldenkamp also said the defense will present testimony from another obstetrician that it’s likely Swartout did not give birth.
[...]

The prosecution alleges that Swartout concocted the fake tale to cover up delivering and suffocating a son in a hotel employee bathroom, as she told police in December 2010.

The defense alleges that she falsely confessed due to sleep deprivation and a predisposition to agree with authorities. They faulted police for failing to verify the alleged infanticide by checking the hotel bathroom for traces of blood and other evidence. A defense forensic expert found no such evidence when he studied the alleged crime scene months later, Oldenkamp told jurors.

That’s because Swartout actually concocted the story to cover up the fact that she faked her pregnancy to garner the love and attention she’d long craved in her large adoptive family, the defense lawyer said.
[...]

Jewel Sward, an older sister who caught Swartout in her lie about delivering a stillborn son, was the first witness for the state on Monday. She testified to seeing Angelica Swartout’s unclothed pregnant belly and placing her hand on that “rock-hard” belly during a labor contraction.
[...]

Lilianne Swartout, Angelica Swartout’s biological half-sister as well as her adoptive sister, also testified to seeing her sister’s bare, swollen belly and to seeing and feeling a child moving inside it.
[...]

Lilianne Swartout briefly broke down as she recounted the moment she believed her sister had killed her newborn son: when she found a folder in the apartment containing computer printouts of articles about placental abruption — the condition Angelica Swartout said killed her son in utero.

“I thought at first that she just wanted to be more educated about having Lucias,” she said before choking up. “Then I saw the dates ... that she’d printed this out weeks before it happened. I showed that to Jewel (Sward). She decided we should go to the police.”
[...]
http://www.registerguard.com/web/newslocalnews/27505504-41/swartout-angelica-sister-birth-child.html.csp

She was called by the state, but a sister testifying Tuesday in the aggravated murder trial of Angelica Swartout sounded more like a defense witness, telling jurors she had “reasonable doubt” that Swartout bore and smothered a baby in December 2010.

Nadine Swartout joined two other sisters, their adoptive mother and four longtime friends of Angelica Swartout in testifying that they saw the 24-year-old hotel clerk’s belly swell before she allegedly delivered and killed a baby boy in a workplace bathroom on Oct. 18, 2010.

Nadine Swartout, 23, said she “definitely, at the time” thought her one-year-older sister was pregnant. “But now ... I don’t know,” she told the jury. She said her certainty was first shaken when she learned that Angelica Swartout had a negative pregnancy test at a Planned Parenthood clinic about six months before the alleged infanticide.

“Thinking beyond a reasonable doubt ... can I be sure that my sister did this?” she testified. “I can’t. I know that my family may be offended, but you have to stand up for what you think is the truth. I don’t know. Maybe only God and Angie know.”

Nadine Swartout and her and Angelica Swartout’s adoptive mother, Ruthanne Swartout Staley, also testified about Angelica Swartout’s tumultuous teen years in a large family that included more than 60 siblings.

Defense attorneys contend Swartout faked the pregnancy to gain support and attention from that family.

And five of Swartout’s longtime Springfield friends testified that they were sure she had what one called “a full-on pregnancy.” Several reported personally feeling her “baby bump,” but most also said she didn’t like her belly touched, wore baggy clothing and asked them not to tell others she was pregnant.

Childhood friend Amber Reed testified, however, that Swartout changed later in her alleged pregnancy, “showing off” what Reed described as her expanding belly by wearing more fashionable maternity clothes. Reed said her friend seemed to become more positive about the idea of becoming a mother after telling Reed and others she’d had an ultrasound showing her unborn baby was a boy.

Under questioning by Swartout’s defense attorney, however, Reed and others acknowledged never seeing such an ultrasound, despite asking to see it.

Earlier Tuesday, a co-worker at Angelica Swartout’s Crossland Hotel workplace testified that she found blood in an employee bathroom when she came to work the night of the alleged murder. Shirley Hogan reported finding two garbage cans containing plastic bags that appeared to be splattered with blood and urine. Hogan said she asked Swartout about the blood, and the clerk said she’d had a miscarriage. Hogan, who said she’d seen no indication that Swartout was pregnant, also reported finding “fresh-looking blood” on sheets in a laundry bin.
[...]http://www.registerguard.com/web/newslocalnews/27510289-41/swartout-angelica-sister-staley-nadine.html.csp

Elfearsandvampireteeth

January 25th, 2012, 10:29 AM

Is it because these people have a labor that went unrecognized that they are able to decide to do this? Or do they just have the will to conceal it THAT well? I am here to tell you that I WAS IN LABOR FOR 25 FUCKING HOURS. I was inside out/upside down with pain. I wanted to find a way to get out of my body. After labor, I was WHITE AS A SHEET for 2 days. How do these people just go on as if nothing happened? I just cannot fathom concealing labor like so many girls do and then... PLOP, they walk into a bathroom and have a baby at their prom, or like this one - goes to work, has a baby and goes home that night. WhatThe is confused.

Anyhow, didn't anyone think it was weird that this girl didn't call anyone to say, "Hey, I'm in labor!"

Thank you, Anytime I hear about these girls/women having secret deliveries(i.e in the bathroom at their senior prom or the bathroom in the prisons visiting room) I do not get how they stay quiet or naturally deliver so fast and nobody notices!
I am thankful & blessed to have fairly quick labor/delivery but it hurts like a motherfucker and I just can't imagine sqautting in a toilet stall silently pushing a baby out!

I guess these bitches underservedly are not only blessed with fertility but the gift of quick,painless births? WTF!

Dakota Valkyrie

January 26th, 2012, 11:07 AM

A local gynecologist who performed a jail pelvic examination on Angelica Swartout testified Wednesday that “remarkable” evidence of trauma to the accused woman’s cervix suggested she had delivered a baby.

Dr. Melissa Edwards drew a diagram on a large courtroom notepad showing the “pinpoint” opening in the cervix of women who have never given birth. She then drew a picture of the opening she said she saw in Swartout’s cervix, a wide, horizontal gap that curved up at each end.

“I felt there was more evidence to suggest that a baby was born than not,” said Edwards, who practices at Women’s Care Physicians and Surgeons.

“I can’t tell you precisely the size or if it was born alive,” she added.
[...]

Edwards said the exam she conducted last month also showed that Swartout has a vertical line of dark pigmentation from her belly button to her pubic bone, which the doctor called a “classic sign of pregnancy” that typically appears in the second trimester.

Edwards said the upward curves at the end of Swartout’s cervical opening suggest scar tissue from tearing and that tissue from the inside of the organ appeared to have been forced outside in another spot. Both were consistent with pushing out a child before the cervix had sufficiently dilated, she said.

The doctor noted, however, that Swartout had no marks or scars in the perineal tissue surrounding her vagina — unusual for a woman who has delivered a child.

Edwards also said false negative pregnancy tests are not uncommon. For instance, drinking lots of fluids can dilute urine to the point that telltale hormones cannot be detected, she testified.
[...]
http://www.registerguard.com/web/newslocalnews/27516085-41/swartout-baby-edwards-bin-body.html.csp

Obsolete

January 26th, 2012, 01:40 PM

Edwards said the exam she conducted last month also showed that Swartout has a vertical line of dark pigmentation from her belly button to her pubic bone, which the doctor called a “classic sign of pregnancy” that typically appears in the second trimester.
Isn't that line common in hispanic women, even without pregnancy?

penelopejo

January 26th, 2012, 03:16 PM

Yes. I had the line even before I got pregnant. It wasn't as dark as it was during my pregnancy, but it was there. Actually, it's still there, just really, really faint.

Abroad

January 26th, 2012, 04:59 PM

Edwards also said false negative pregnancy tests are not uncommon. For instance, drinking lots of fluids can dilute urine to the point that telltale hormones cannot be detected, she testified.

There goes the "but she had a negative pregnany test only six months earlier" excuse.........

Dakota Valkyrie

January 27th, 2012, 08:34 AM

A doctor testifying for the defense told a jury Thursday that she believed it was “more likely than not” that Angelica Swartout, accused of smothering a newborn son, never delivered a child.

The testimony by Medford obstetrician and gynecologist Linda Ruth Harris was the opposite of what jurors heard Wednesday from a local OB/GYN physician called by the state. While both doctors said they could not be sure one way or the other, Dr. Melissa Edwards said the appearance of Swartout’s cervix and other physical characteristics showed more evidence to suggest that a baby was born than not.
[...]

Both medical witnesses are experienced doctors who offered their opinions after performing recent pelvic exams on Swartout at the Lane County Jail.

Harris testified that her practice now includes a Jackson County clinic where about half of her patients are Latinas and Hispanic women. That led her to reach a different conclusion about one feature that both doctors observed in Swartout: a vertical line of darkened skin running from her belly button to her pubic bone.

Edwards called that a sign of pregnancy. But Harris testified Thursday that many dark-skinned women, including Native Americans, have such a line long before becoming pregnant. Swartout’s mother is a member of Canada’s Ojibwa tribe.

Harris told jurors she offered to testify after seeing a defense investigator’s digital photos of Swartout’s cervix during Edwards’ exam. She said she was concerned that Edwards was expected to cite the appearance of that cervix in her testimony, concluding that the accused woman had likely given birth.

“I wanted to see the shape and size of the cervix myself,” Harris said. “I also wanted to make sure that people understood that the shape of the cervix is not always a determinant if someone has delivered vaginally.”

She described Swartout’s cervical opening as smaller and less turned up at each end than Edwards had the previous day. Her drawing for jurors was of a slightly elliptical opening.

Harris also disputed Edwards’ contention that the presence of the outside of tissue normally found on the inside of Swartout’s cervix suggested she had pushed out a baby.

The Medford doctor said she had seen many examples of such “everted tissue” on adolescent women who’d never had a vaginal delivery.

She acknowledged under questioning by prosecutor Bob Lane, however, that Swartout’s cervical opening was not the “classically small, round” opening “that one would see in a textbook.”

Both Edwards and Harris testified that Swartout had no signs of tearing or other trauma to the tissue surrounding her vagina. Harris said Thursday that it would be ”remarkable” for a first-time mother to give birth, unattended, without some tearing in that area.

Harris also testified that she has seen cases of women feigning an entire pregnancy, and that studies have documented such women fooling friends and family members by gaining weight, sticking out their stomachs to make their bellies appear round, or voluntarily contracting muscles to simulate the movement of a baby inside a womb.

Finally, Harris countered Edwards’ testimony that false pregnancy tests are not uncommon, saying a “false negative” test would be unlikely at the gestational age in March of a full-term fetus born in October.
[...]

The trial continues today with jurors slated to watch Swartout’s videotaped confession.
http://www.registerguard.com/web/newslocalnews/27521347-41/swartout-harris-edwards-cervix-baby.html.csp

penelopejo

January 27th, 2012, 11:51 AM

Dakota Valkyrie

January 31st, 2012, 09:33 AM

A Eugene man testified Monday that a Springfield motel clerk accused of killing her newborn son on Oct. 18, 2010, did not appear pregnant when they had sex multiple times earlier that year.

Riley Enriques told a jury in Angelica Swartout’s aggravated murder case that he’d previously had sexual relationships with pregnant women. Enriques did not say how far into the year the encounters occurred with Swartout, but testified that the two frequently had sex when she came by his apartment once or twice a week to “kick back, watch movies, smoke weed and drink.”

Several other defense witnesses testified that Swartout did not appear to be in advanced pregnancy at a summer 2010 baby shower in her honor.

Among them was a friend since third grade, Stephanie Minter, who told jurors that she asked Swartout at the shower: “You’re so small, like, is your baby OK?”

Minter also testified that she went home after the gathering and told her husband that Swartout “didn’t show too much.”

Under questioning from prosecutor Bob Lane, however, Minter testified that she never asked her friend if she really was pregnant, even after placing a hand on Swartout’s belly.
[...]

Swartout is expected to testify today as the defense wraps up its case.
http://www.registerguard.com/web/newslocalnews/27541846-41/swartout-testified-2010-pregnant-baby.html.csp

Dakota Valkyrie

February 1st, 2012, 10:48 AM

Accused of killing a newborn son, Angelica Swartout took the witness stand Tuesday and demonstrated for jurors how she allegedly pushed out her belly to simulate advancing pregnancy in order to continue receiving support and attention from her large adoptive family.

The 24-year-old hotel clerk testified that she got so “trapped into the story” she’d allegedly concocted after an apparent miscarriage that she “didn’t know how to get out of it.”

Swartout spoke only vaguely about a videotaped December 2010 police interrogation in which she tearfully confessed to delivering and smothering a baby boy in a workplace employee bathroom on Oct. 18, 2010.

“My mind wasn’t processing what was going on at that time. … I didn’t realize at the time I was setting myself up for an aggravated murder charge,” she said in a Lane County courtroom.

She said she didn’t “tell the truth” even when police confronted her because doing so would mean “telling my family I lied to them.”

Under cross-examination by prosecutor Bob Lane, she acknowledged agreeing when police suggested that she delivered a child in the employee bathroom, that the baby was squeaking and gasping for air, and that she wrapped it up so tightly that it couldn’t breathe, then put it in a trash bin.

“I felt they already decided what happened, so I just kept agreeing with them,” she said, later adding: “I felt that even if I told them the truth, I wouldn’t be believed.”

Swartout also told Lane that she didn’t recall telling a co-worker the night of the alleged infanticide that she’d had a miscarriage. The hotel laundry worker testified last week that Swartout offered that explanation after the co-worker found plastic bags that appeared to be spattered with blood and urine in a restroom trash can.

Swartout also appeared to struggle to answer Lane’s questions about why she waited until the summer of 2011 to tell her defense team that she’d faked a pregnancy and never delivered a child.

Under follow-up questioning by defense attorney Gordon Mallon, Swartout said she didn’t want to admit to her family that she’d lied about the pregnancy, and had expected that a police investigation would turn up evidence — such as a negative pregnancy test at a local clinic in March 2010 — that she never had a child. She said “reality kicked in” when she went to a summer 2011 court proceeding and learned that she faced a possible death sentence. The state has since decided not to seek the ultimate punishment if Swartout is convicted.

She began her testimony Tuesday by telling jurors she was “very scared.”

“This is the only chance I have to tell the truth,” she said. “I’m scared that if I’m not believed, I’ll spend the rest of my life in prison.”

But she looked directly at the jury as she responded to Mallon’s request that she “tell the jury how this all got started.”

“I lied. I lied to my family and friends,” she said.

Swartout said she initially told them truthfully that she’d had a positive home pregnancy test while living out of state in early 2010. Feeling “scared and unsure,” she contacted one of her older adoptive sisters, Jewel Sward, and accepted Sward’s invitation to come home to Springfield, Swartout said.

“For the first time in my life since I was a kid, I felt a sense of belonging,” she told the jury. “I mattered to my family all the sudden. ... They thought I was going to have a baby. Babies are big in our family.”

Then, that February, she had some vaginal bleeding. She’d read that such bleeding was possible even during pregnancy, Swartout said, telling jurors: “I didn’t want to think about the other possibility that it could have been a miscarriage.”

After the negative pregnancy test, that “denial” ended, she said. But she pretended the gestation was progressing, she said, because “I was just so into the way I was being treated by my family,” including regular phone calls from her adoptive mother. The acceptance stood in contrast to her teen years, she said, when she was “cast as kind of the black sheep.”

She said she lied about doctor appointments and about having an ultrasound showing she was having a boy. Swartout disputed reports by prosecution witnesses that her belly grew steadily larger with pregnancy in the spring, summer and fall of 2010. She testified that a local mother-child nutrition program recorded her weight as 181 pounds in April 2010, and 180 pounds in June of that year. She said she now weighs about 170 pounds.
[...]

She told the panel of eight women and four men that she carried out the ruse by wearing baggy clothing — “I actually wore a fleece (jacket) all summer” — and pushing out her stomach. At Mallon’s suggestion, she stood in the witness stand and struck the same pose as in a July 28, 2010, photo that her sister provided the state as evidence of her advancing pregnancy.

She said she falsely told friends and family that she delivered a stillborn son at a local hospital on Oct. 18, 2010, “because I was supposed to be having a kid.”
[...]
http://www.registerguard.com/web/newslocalnews/27545279-41/swartout-pregnancy-family-2010-didn.html.csp

Dakota Valkyrie

February 17th, 2012, 12:38 PM

Swartout trial ends in hung jury
Judge Suzanne Chanti declares a mistrial after jurors are unable to reach a verdict

The jury went home, the attorneys went back to their offices, and Angelica Swartout went back to jail Wednesday afternoon after Lane County Circuit Judge Suzanne Chanti declared a mistrial in Swartout’s aggravated murder case.

Chanti’s ruling came after jurors convinced her that after four full days of deliberating behind closed doors, they could not reach consensus and decide whether prosecutors proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Swartout killed a newborn son in October 2010.

“Because the jury is hopelessly hung, I do declare a mistrial,” Chanti said.

After releasing the jury, Chanti immediately scheduled a new trial for Swartout for April 16. Lane County sheriff’s deputies then led Swartout back to jail, where she has been held since Springfield police arrested her in December 2010.

Earlier, when jurors returned to the courtroom just after 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, Chanti instructed them not to reveal how many of them lined up on the side of convicting Swartout of murder and how many others felt that prosecutors failed to prove the case.
[...]

Lane County Chief Deputy District Attorney Patty Perlow declined to comment on the case on Wednesday, saying all parties are still prohibited from talking about it outside of court because of a gag order that Chanti previously imposed.

Unless a plea agreement is reached, another trial will proceed — although it is possible that prosecutors could dismiss the charge rather than retry the case.
[...]http://www.registerguard.com/web/polls/27577183-56/swartout-jury-2010-chanti-lane.html.csp

MotherManderkin

February 17th, 2012, 01:41 PM

Obsolete

February 17th, 2012, 02:02 PM

CbabyRKO

February 17th, 2012, 02:44 PM

MotherManderkin

February 17th, 2012, 02:45 PM

I think you are probably right. Which makes this story even more mind boggling and sickening. I didn't read the part about the doctor examining her and saying that. Yes, there are several definite ways to be able to tell if a woman has given birth. If he didn't see any indications, then she probably did not.

MotherManderkin

February 17th, 2012, 02:56 PM

I can't be the only one who has heard of women claiming they were pregnant even tho its a lie and their bodies began to mimic the signs of pregnancy distended belly and morning sickness etc. I don't think she was pregnant. Or if she was she miscarried early on and made up the miscarriage story including the blood in the bathroom of her job. But like her sister said only she and God knows what really happened.
I have heard of that, I believe it is called pseudo pregnancy? I have also heard of women wanting to fake pregnancy so badly that they distort their image, sonogram pictures, tell lie after lie... and when they can't produce a baby they either deseperately try to steal one, or claim theirs has died. She may be the biggest most delusional and psychotic attention whore I've heard about in a long while, but the more I read, the more I am starting to be convinced that this was all a ruse for attention and sympathy.

malq

February 17th, 2012, 07:16 PM

If that's true, then you just made the case that there was never a baby to begin with. The doctor that examined her testified that there wasn't indisputable proof that she had ever given birth. If the uterus and pelvic bones are forever changed after birth it should be pretty easy for them to say "yes, she definitely had a baby".

I don't believe she ever gave birth and if she ever was pregnant, I believe she miscarried during her early stages.
Oddly enough, I happen to be right next to a MD. I asked her, and she read Mothers post. She said she is correct. Forensically, that's how they tell if a skeleton has given birth FYI. I did not know that.

MotherManderkin

February 17th, 2012, 07:18 PM

Oddly enough, I happen to be right next to a MD. I asked her, and she read Mothers post. She said she is correct. Forensically, that's how they tell if a skeleton has given birth FYI. I did not know that.

See, I retain at least some of what I learn in college... My professors would be so proud. :biggrin2:

Obsolete

February 17th, 2012, 07:25 PM

Oddly enough, I happen to be right next to a MD. I asked her, and she read Mothers post. She said she is correct. Forensically, that's how they tell if a skeleton has given birth FYI. I did not know that.

I wasn't disagreeing, I was proving a point...which I effectively proved. So HAH!

malq

February 17th, 2012, 07:38 PM

I wasn't disagreeing, I was proving a point...which I effectively proved. So HAH!
I agree with you. I proved you were right. HAH!. Love and peace-Malq

Obsolete

February 17th, 2012, 07:39 PM

I agree with you. I proved you were right. HAH!. Love and peace-Malq

Now show me your tits!

Dakota Valkyrie

February 17th, 2012, 07:57 PM

Now show me your tits!
NO!
I have no desire to see malq's moobs.

Obsolete

February 17th, 2012, 07:59 PM

NO!
I have no desire to see malq's moobs.

Then don't look, and stop trying to moob block

malq

February 17th, 2012, 08:26 PM

Now show me your tits!
I have tried 3 times to show you just my nipples for a warmup. dakota keeps blocking my post.
this is my last try
http://i43.tinypic.com/4ij85y.jpg

Obsolete

February 17th, 2012, 08:27 PM

I have tried 3 times to show you just my nipples for a warmup. dakota keeps blocking my post.
this is my last try
http://i43.tinypic.com/4ij85y.jpg

Those look just like my Aunt Beckys

malq

February 17th, 2012, 08:31 PM

Those look just like my Aunt Beckys
Yeah, I know

VAS1326

February 17th, 2012, 08:44 PM

If I were on that jury, I wouldn't find her guilty because there's not enough evidence to tell me otherwise. Maybe guilty of lying to the police, but not of murdering a child that we don't even know exists.

I find it very odd that there was no sign of either tearing or stretching, even though they are saying she gave birth....

I don't find it odd she didn't tear....I'm guessing she would have had a small baby since she had a drug problem or possibly this baby was concieved after the March pregnancy test and she did actually go into early labor and have a still born. My friend was 15 when she gave birth to a premie and she did not rip or tear. My SIL gave birth to my nephew (who is her only child) who was born full term and weighing around 8lbs without tearing (the OB she had I used with my last 2 pregnancies and he has a method that helps prevent tearing which obviously works) Her friend also used same OB for her first delivery and she too did not tear. It's really not uncommon.

Now that I said that I wonder if that is what happened. I wonder if in Jan she got the positive pregnancy test (which would be super early since she would have gotten pregnant in January to be due in October (I have an October baby and didn't miss a cycle until February) and then miscarried or was not actually pregnant like she told people. Then sometime after March got knocked up for real. I had a friend who did that to trap a man. She claimed to be pregnant and got him to marry her like a month later. Then a few months after that she tells me she miscarried the first child and didn't know it (no bleeding or anything) and got pregnant again when she should have been 3 months pregnant. I don't for a minute believe she was pregnant the first time cause other things she said didn't make sense. She was really pregnant the second time. I don't talk to that girl anymore. She was always so full of shit. Anyways back on point..maybe the mom in this story did the same thing. Maybe that is why the change in behavior. Maybe after she did get knocked up for real she was "happy" about it and more willing to let others touch her belly. Maybe that's why no ultrasound pictures were shown to friends (since they have the gestation date on them) Who knows with this woman.

I think this woman wove a web of so many stories she doesn't even know what is truth.

VAS1326

February 17th, 2012, 10:57 PM

A few key points I feel I must make... Firstly, yes, there are several ways to tell if a woman has delivered a baby in her lifetime. They cannot be faked. Two I can think of off of the top of my head are the placement of the pelvic bones, and the size of her uterus. No matter when she delivered, be it 2 weeks ago or 20 years ago, those will be different than someone who has never had a baby. The pelvic bones shift during pregnancy and never go back into place. The uterus shrinks after delivery but never goes back to the size it once was.
As far as having a negative pregnancy test 3 months into a pregnancy... *raises hand* I did that too. I had a negative BLOOD pregnancy test 3 months into a pregnancy. It can happen.
Unfortunately, I do not think this child's body will ever be found. Due to that fact, I do not think that she will be convicted. I think we have another Casey Anthony over here who can lay down and bring a child into the world, take it away just as easily without flinching, and then get off on reasonable doubt. Sad.

The problem with both those methods is it is almost nearly impossible to know or prove either. First in order to show somebody's pelvic bones have moved you would have to know how exactly they were positioned pre-labor. Not many people have full body x-rays laying around. Also not every person who has a baby has hips that appear to have widened. It would take before and after to compare. You think it would be easy to tell this way but it's too hard to prove one way or another.

As far as everything I've ever read (I have had 4 pregnancies over the course of 13 years) the uterus does shrink back to pre-pregnancy size. But let's say you are correct and it really doesn't go back to how it was how does one measure a uterus acurrately without going in and measuring. When they measure your uterus when pregnant they measure your belly to get an approximate size (from measuring what they call the fundus) Mine verried every week of my 3rd pregnancy...one week measuring a week ahead and then the next week it measured a week behind...literally every week. Why because it is not exact. I guess they can also measure with ultrasound but if no previous record of size exist how do you know if it changed? Just like some uterus's are tilted others are smaller then average and some are larger then average. There is no previous timeline to compare too so it just wouldn't work.

I don't know if the woman is guilty or not. It's hard when two experts disagree. Who knows who to believe. I also don't know which part of her story is lies and which are not. Why would a co-worker lie about finding blood all over? Why tell police you killed your baby when oops I lied would have worked much better? She didn't know she was setting herself up for a murder charge if she confessed to killing the baby? I think that is bs. I really don't think anyone will ever know the absolute truth in this case.

malq

February 17th, 2012, 11:17 PM

I am pretty sure there is some way to tell if a woman's ever given birth BUT can the state force you into doing the testing? I dunno. Wouldn't that be a violation of Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination? It's the state's job to prove a crime was committed but you don't have to help them do it.

This may be true. You do not not have to give a DNA sample or a breath/blood test for a DUI.
I know there are court ordered urinalysis's for just about anything, and cavity searches for prisoners. A pelvic examination is no more invasive than boarding a plane. i think it can be done with an xray. They do that all the time for people suspected of smuggling. The question is,.. is it a violation of self incrimination? I think it can be court ordered in the discovery of as crime. It could certainly be argued that it is a violation by any attorney who can spell kat.

malq

February 17th, 2012, 11:43 PM

The problem with both those methods is it is almost nearly impossible to know or prove either. First in order to show somebody's pelvic bones have moved you would have to know how exactly they were positioned pre-labor. Not many people have full body x-rays laying around. Also not every person who has a baby has hips that appear to have widened. It would take before and after to compare. You think it would be easy to tell this way but it's too hard to prove one way or another.

As far as everything I've ever read (I have had 4 pregnancies over the course of 13 years) the uterus does shrink back to pre-pregnancy size. But let's say you are correct and it really doesn't go back to how it was how does one measure a uterus acurrately without going in and measuring. When they measure your uterus when pregnant they measure your belly to get an approximate size (from measuring what they call the fundus) Mine verried every week of my 3rd pregnancy...one week measuring a week ahead and then the next week it measured a week behind...literally every week. Why because it is not exact. I guess they can also measure with ultrasound but if no previous record of size exist how do you know if it changed? Just like some uterus's are tilted others are smaller then average and some are larger then average. There is no previous timeline to compare too so it just wouldn't work.

I don't know if the woman is guilty or not. It's hard when two experts disagree. Who knows who to believe. I also don't know which part of her story is lies and which are not. Why would a co-worker lie about finding blood all over? Why tell police you killed your baby when oops I lied would have worked much better? She didn't know she was setting herself up for a murder charge if she confessed to killing the baby? I think that is bs. I really don't think anyone will ever know the absolute truth in this case.

Yeah you got me curious so I did some digging. It appears there are ways of proving if a woman has given birth in a skeleton.
But searching for proof in a live woman I ended up on forums with postnatal women worried about their saggy labia and paranoia over gaping vaginas. one claimed her vagina never shrunk back down. picture that...I gave up.

Pelvis

Look for the pubic symphysis, which is the joint located in the pelvis. The older the person at death, the more pitted and craggy these bones will be. Forensic anthropologists will compare this against a database of standard markers to learn the age of the skeleton. Check if there are any soft marks on the cartilage which are left by childbirth as the bones soften to allow easier birth.

To identify gender, assess the pelvis shape; men have a narrow, deep pelvis and women a wider, shallower pelvis, better-suited to carrying a baby. For a quick identification in the field, a forensic anthropologist will find the notch in the fan-shaped bone of the pelvis and stick their thumb into it. If there's room to wiggle the thumb, then it's a female; if it's a tight fit, it's the skeleton of a man
lost the fucking link

The pelvis area is another good way of differentiating between the sexes. A female will have a larger sub-pubic angle to that of a man and this is obviously indicative of child bearing requirements in the female that are not required in the male of the species. This difference is noticeable across all species in nature where birth is from the womb. The male's sub-pubic area is less than ninety degrees whilst the female's is more.

The area around the pelvic inlet (in the middle of the pelvic bone) is larger in females than in men again with relevance to child bearing. The skeleton of a female who has given birth will be identifiable by the fact that this space will have widened upon the birth of a child and although it will contract it will not contract fully back to its original size.
http://www.exploreforensics.co.uk/determining-sex.html

Where is the evidence? From my (albeit limited) knowledge of osteology and palaeopathology it transpires that there are ways of ascertaining whether a female skeleton is that of a woman who has given birth (or tried to give birth) to a child, in that every birth results in scarring of the pubic bones, particularly of the pelvis. If one were to examine the pelvises of the skeletons of those females who died in the 20 to 35 age range one might be able to figure out which of these women had given birth or tried to. These individuals might likely (but still not definitely) be the ones who could have died in childbirth. Those individuals with no evidence of scarring to the pelvis are then the ones that definitely died from causes other than childbirth. I raise these questions because in my simple mind, when it comes to statistics, I cannot fathom how most of us alive today would actually have got here if our putative ancestral mothers had all died in childbirth. To the argument that we are the descendants of those (few) women who survived childbirth I would counter that such a limited line of descent would contradict the genetic diversity we see today.
http://irinametzler.org/2011/10/13/skeletons-in-the-cupboard/

VAS1326

February 18th, 2012, 03:21 PM

Thanks Malq I stand corrected. My question is it possible to find these markers on a living person? I looked for the answer too but could not find it.

malq

February 18th, 2012, 03:39 PM

Thanks Malq I stand corrected. My question is it possible to find these markers on a living person? I looked for the answer too but could not find it.

Sorry, wasn't trying to correct you. :D I had a doctor tell me yesterday you could tell by the bones of the pelvis. I would have to ask for more details though. What you said makes complete sense and sounds subjective to prove on a live person.
Ohhh i found this, tell me if it makes sense. I am no gyno, I came up through the ranks as a journeyman with enough experience I got my union card.

According to Dr. Adelaide Nardone, medical advisor to the Vagisil Women's Health Center and clinical instructor at the Brown University School of Medicine, "If a woman has never had a baby, her cervical opening is very small, in some cases as small as a pinhead, but large enough to allow for menstrual blood to flow out and to allow for the insertion of a cytobrush [used when obtaining Pap smears]," says Dr. Nardone. "If a woman has had a vaginal delivery, the external opening of the cervix can be described as a small 'slit' or 'fish mouth,' but the internal 'os' [the junction between the cervix and the uterus] should be closed."
http://www.babyzone.com/pregnancy/health_wellness/article/cervix

Nell

February 18th, 2012, 04:01 PM

Over the next several weeks, the uterus slowly returns to its nonpregnant state, although the overall uterine size remains larger than prior to gestation.

http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/260187-overview

You are never the same after giving birth. I can't believe that they are having so much trouble figuring this out.

Also, I would never go to a DR. that claimed no one ever tore. Not because i don't believe him, but if you don't tear they don't stitch you, and you end up looser than you would be. Which is why after my 3rd I got a honeymoon stitch.

TMI bitches.

malq

February 19th, 2012, 01:29 AM

Nell

February 19th, 2012, 01:36 AM

Har har. My 4th and 5th were C-Sections.

CbabyRKO

February 19th, 2012, 02:35 AM

Dakota Valkyrie

February 19th, 2012, 08:59 AM

Over the next several weeks, the uterus slowly returns to its nonpregnant state, although the overall uterine size remains larger than prior to gestation.
http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/260187-overview

You are never the same after giving birth. I can't believe that they are having so much trouble figuring this out.

Wouldn't that go back to the "what size was it originally" issue? It may be larger but who knows what size it was to start with :noidea:

Nell

February 19th, 2012, 06:46 PM

Apparently it never goes all the way back down. And I think they just use a basic measurement. A normal uterus before pregnancy should be 7.5 x 5 x 2.5cm. Also, even if she didn't tear or anything her cervix would have a slit shaped OS, not a tight pinhole.

http://www.avivahealth.ie/member-info/Know_your_uterus

After birth, the mouth of the cervix will have be somewhat wider, with a fish mouth appearance, rather slit-shaped.

Case is weird. Maybe she shouldn't have lied.

princessgrandma

February 19th, 2012, 07:36 PM

Shadow

February 19th, 2012, 07:36 PM

I tore and my babe was only 5lbs 15oz. I was fucking traumatized not gonna lie. When the doctor was stitching me up I was like wtf is going on lol. I know this is gonna sound gross or maybe invasive but can they check to see if she has um...a healed wound/tearing down there.

Yeah, I'm with you. After my first baby, I had 3rd degree lacerations according to the doctor who stitched it all back together. My first baby was 6 1/2 wks early and only weighed 5lbs. My girl bits weren't ready to deliver a child, I guess.

~shadow

MotherManderkin

February 19th, 2012, 08:47 PM

MotherManderkin

February 19th, 2012, 08:49 PM

Wouldn't that go back to the "what size was it originally" issue? It may be larger but who knows what size it was to start with :noidea:

Your normal basic uterus is about the size of a pear, so I hear lol.

Who is craving pears now, and who won't ever eat them again?

MotherManderkin

February 19th, 2012, 09:04 PM

Did you all see this picture?

http://i43.tinypic.com/wiaatz.jpg

VAS1326

February 19th, 2012, 11:07 PM

Sorry, wasn't trying to correct you. :D I had a doctor tell me yesterday you could tell by the bones of the pelvis. I would have to ask for more details though. What you said makes complete sense and sounds subjective to prove on a live person.
Ohhh i found this, tell me if it makes sense. I am no gyno, I came up through the ranks as a journeyman with enough experience I got my union card.

http://www.babyzone.com/pregnancy/health_wellness/article/cervix

Oh I know but obviously I was wrong saying they couldn't tell. Though I agree it seems like something that would be awefully difficult to do with a living skeleton. I think if it was doable it would be done.

I am willing to bet that labor changes the cervix in some way. I am not a doctor of any sort so I really don't know. The babyzone seems like it may be a better source then myself.

VAS1326

February 19th, 2012, 11:16 PM

http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/260187-overview

You are never the same after giving birth. I can't believe that they are having so much trouble figuring this out.

Also, I would never go to a DR. that claimed no one ever tore. Not because i don't believe him, but if you don't tear they don't stitch you, and you end up looser than you would be. Which is why after my 3rd I got a honeymoon stitch.

TMI bitches.

He didn't claim to never tear but everyone who gave birth with him present that I know did not tear. The doctor cannot determine who tears and who doesn't but he/she can help strech the area to avoid tearing.

I also have to strongly disagree with your stitching statement. Actually I'm going to go ahead and say that's simply not true. For me stitching didn't make an ounce of difference. I think nature knows what it's doing. A stitch is on the outside (the perienum usually) and doesn't affect actual vagina size just the inner labia area.

Anyways here is why I feel your statement is false or at least is not true in my case:

1st baby (7lbs 12oz) tore and had stitches and was about the same. 2nd baby (8lbs 14oz) tore and was not the same at all. Actually was looser then prior too. After all I pushed a big head almost 9 pound baby out it. Not to mention the stitch work done at the MTF was a botch job and I now have some unpleasant scarring. 3rd baby (7lbs 14oz) No tear no stitching slightly smaller then after #2 (was kind of disappointed at first I wanted the old scar fixed lol) 4th baby (6lbs 8oz) no tearing no stitch and back to pre baby #1 size.

Nature works in mysterious ways. I should mention baby #2 was born 6 and a half years after #1. #3 came six years after that and #4 was born 15 months after that.

Nell

February 20th, 2012, 12:08 AM

I also have to strongly disagree with your stitching statement. Actually I'm going to go ahead and say that's simply not true. For me stitching didn't make an ounce of difference. I think nature knows what it's doing. A stitch is on the outside (the perienum usually) and doesn't affect actual vagina size just the inner labia area.

We are different and had different doctors. So you don't really know how i tore, where my stitches were, or any of that. So just like i couldn't say that what you said about your own experiences was "simply not true", you really can't say it of mine.

VXIII

February 20th, 2012, 03:49 AM

I have tried 3 times to show you just my nipples for a warmup. dakota keeps blocking my post.
this is my last try
http://i43.tinypic.com/4ij85y.jpg

good lord, they look less like moobs and more like double dicks... albeit short little dicks

VAS1326

February 20th, 2012, 06:11 AM

VAS1326

February 20th, 2012, 06:18 AM

We are different and had different doctors. So you don't really know how i tore, where my stitches were, or any of that. So just like i couldn't say that what you said about your own experiences was "simply not true", you really can't say it of mine.

In the post I quoted you very matter of factly said without stitching you will never be the same as if it were fact. You did not say "if I don't tear they don't stitch me, and I end up looser then I would be" No you used the word you (which as a reader refers to me not you) I was simply stating that no I think you are wrong because I did not end up looser without the stitch.

It may be true for you but that does not mean it is true for everyone. Now if you said some people or you yourself couldn't go back to "normal" without stitches then there would be no basis to argue however; you made a blanket statement. Oh I never claimed to know you. I simply disagreed with your blanket statement that
if you don't tear they don't stitch you, and you end up looser than you would be.

Obsolete

February 20th, 2012, 01:12 PM

Deleted - How do I put a spoiler on a pic?

malq

February 20th, 2012, 01:20 PM

Deleted - How do I put a spoiler on a pic?

Obsy, if you use the go advanced option when posting you get another screen that has a spoiler button. Actually says spoil. I have to play with it to get it right so I usually just end up posting it and get in trouble. Yuz kinda smart, so you will figure it out.

Obsolete.

Obsolete

February 20th, 2012, 01:56 PM

Obsy, if you use the go advanced option when posting you get another screen that has a spoiler button. Actually says spoil. I have to play with it to get it right so I usually just end up posting it and get in trouble. Yuz kinda smart, so you will figure it out.

Obsolete.

Don't be too sure about that. I wrapped the spoiler around the pic but when I click "preview post" the photo still shows up. I give up...but rest assured it was a funny post.

Obsolete

February 20th, 2012, 02:39 PM

good lord, they look less like moobs and more like double dicks... albeit short little dicks

Speaking of double dicks, I just happen to have this photo of @malq (http://www.dreamindemon.com/forums/member.php?u=1178) laying around.

http://i42.tinypic.com/jza58h.jpg

I hope I did this right.

VXIII

February 20th, 2012, 03:22 PM

I wonder if they like having the double dicks or are embarrassed to show them, think id be ashamed if I had 4 boobs... althought Id probobly show them for money :rofl:

VXIII

February 20th, 2012, 03:42 PM

Now this is just my opinion but I don't think the girl was ever pregnant. I think she's just your basic garden-variety pathological liar who backed herself into a corner and had to find a way out. She talked about how her family was about babies. I'm thinking that that was her way back in and to get treated like a princess and she took it.

When it was show time, she couldn't produce a baby, so she came up with her story.

My sister was a pathological liar. She lied so much, she herself lost track of where the truth ended and the lies started. Believing your own lies goes a long way in the convincing, but it doesn't create a baby out of thin air.

I agree and just thank the gods she just faked a miscarriage and didnt go hunt down some poor full term pregnant woman, kill her and try to cut the baby out of her. If there was blood at her job bathroom they can test that to see what type of blood it was and DNA it, she could have just put menstrual blood or something all over. who knows but I think she was a faker too. We will soon find out because they can tell if you have had a baby in the past... science is wonderful these days, problem is they always have a doctor for the defence and one for prosecution who give 2 different stories. Makes it 50/50 chance on who is more believable...

malq

February 20th, 2012, 05:48 PM

Speaking of double dicks, I just happen to have this photo of malq laying around.

http://i42.tinypic.com/jza58h.jpg

.
That's it, I am posting your teats. That was supposed to be between us.

Dakota Valkyrie

February 23rd, 2012, 10:32 AM

A single holdout prevented a Lane County jury from reaching a unanimous verdict required to convict a Springfield woman of murdering a newborn child, one of the jurors said during an interview with The Register-Guard.

Eleven of the 12 jurors asked to decide whether Angelica Swartout fatally smothered a baby determined following a trial earlier this month that prosecutors proved the woman is guilty of murder, said the juror, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Evidence supporting an allegation that the 24-year-old Swartout killed her son “was overwhelming,” the juror said.

But one panelist apparently didn’t think so — although the juror who spoke with the newspaper said the lone holdout was unable to explain exactly why he felt Swartout should be acquitted.

“He couldn’t really come up with a good reason,” the juror said. “He basically said at the end, ‘I can’t convict anyone.’”

After it became clear the man would not be pressured into changing his mind, the jury informed Lane County Circuit Judge Suzanne Chanti that it could not reach a verdict following four full days of deliberations, according to the juror who agreed to be interviewed.

Chanti subsequently declared a mistrial and announced a second murder trial for Swartout would begin April 16.
[...]

A conviction would have required a unanimous vote of the 12-member panel, while an acquittal required 10 to find her not guilty.

The eight women and four men who comprised the jury were not identified by name in court.

Chanti told jurors after declaring the mistrial that they were free to talk to anyone about the case. A second juror contacted by the newspaper declined to discuss the panel’s deliberations.

The juror who did speak with the newspaper said the jury took an initial vote upon convening behind closed doors following the trial.

They voted anonymously, using blank slips of paper as ballots. The juror said he and one other person voted in favor of finding Swartout guilty, while “two or three others” cast votes of not guilty. The other seven or eight panelists indicated they had not yet come to a conclusion, the juror said.

The jury spent the rest of that afternoon and all of the next day — Friday, Feb. 3 — reviewing their notes, discussing the credibility of witness testimony and evaluating evidence offered by both sides, the juror said.

The evidence included a two-hour videotape on which the hotel clerk confessed to a Springfield police detective that she had suffocated her newborn son while at work on Oct. 18, 2010.

“We analyzed that confession pretty well,” the juror said.

Her defense attorneys have contended that Swartout falsely confessed at the suggestion of police, and that she faked a pregnancy and stillbirth to gain attention and support from her large adoptive family.

While the confession was a central part of the prosecution’s case, the juror who spoke with the newspaper said “it was the totality of” the evidence that led him to conclude that Swartout was guilty.

The juror said he believed the testimony of a coworker of Swartout’s who said she had found blood in an employee bathroom when she came to work the night of the alleged murder. Shirley Hogan said she asked Swartout about the blood, and the clerk said she’d had a miscarriage. Hogan, who said she’d seen no indication that Swartout was pregnant, also reported finding “fresh-looking blood” on sheets in a laundry bin.

Hogan “had nothing to gain from this thing,” the juror said in explaining why he accepted her testimony as true.

The juror said he generally found the prosecution’s witnesses — from a doctor who examined Swartout and testified that it was more likely than not that Swartout had delivered a baby, to family members who said they believed she was pregnant — to be more credible than those offered by defense attorneys. Doctors who testified for the defense said they suspected Swartout had not delivered a full-term baby, and several people close to the woman said she did not appear to be in advanced pregnancy at a summer 2010 baby shower in her honor.

The jury returned for further deliberations on Monday, Feb. 6. At some point that day, they took a second anonymous vote by paper, according to the juror who agreed to be interviewed.

The vote: 11-to-1 in favor of convicting Swartout of aggravated murder, the juror said.

After the holdout’s identity became known, the majority began questioning him about his point of view.

“We just wanted to know what was the deal,” the juror said.

The juror said that panelists who disagreed with the man “didn’t get too heated with him, but people were being pretty blunt because they were disappointed and upset about it.”

The juror said he and the others finally concluded — two days later, on Wednesday, Feb. 8 — that the man would not change his mind and join them in voting to convict Swartout.
[...]

Although he remains convinced Swartout is guilty, the juror who spoke with the newspaper said he understands how someone could have trouble convicting a person of a “horrific” murder.

“There is a psychological burden that comes along with it,” the juror said. “I don’t think anyone wants to say someone’s guilty (in a case such as Swartout’s), because I don’t think a good person wants to believe that someone is capable of doing that to a baby.”
http://www.registerguard.com/web/newslocalnews/27654075-41/juror-swartout-jury-guilty-chanti.html.csp

Dakota Valkyrie

March 3rd, 2012, 11:16 AM

A judge on Friday postponed by two weeks the scheduled April 16 retrial of a Springfield woman accused of killing her alleged newborn child in October of 2010.

Lane County Circuit Judge Suzanne Chanti denied a motion by Angelica Swartout’s defense attorneys seeking a longer delay so they could prepare to raise new issues in defense of the 24-year-old hotel clerk.
[...]

“Our initial trial strategy didn’t work,” defense attorney Gordon Mallon had told Chanti during an initial hearing on Monday on the issue of a retrial postponement. “And so we are rebuilding our case. ... We’re not going to do the same thing.”

But the judge told him she would not delay the new trial for that reason.

“The fact that you got a mistrial out of that doesn’t mean that I have to extend the whole proceeding so you can say, ‘Oh, that didn’t work so now I’m going to do something different’ ” Chanti said. “You can certainly do something different, but I really think we need to get this case done.”

At a hearing on Friday, Chanti formally granted a two-week extension.
[...]

While hearing arguments on the motion Friday, Chanti took prosecutor Bob Lane’s suggestion that she push the retrial back to April 30 to accommodate the scheduling problems with witnesses and Oldenkamp’s other cases. The judge made the April 30 date contingent on the availability of the prosecution’s main medical witness, however.

Mallon indicated Friday that the defense team is preparing to challenge the validity and admissibility of evidence presented by that witness, Dr. Marcia Edwards, in Swartout’s first trial. The local obstetrician/*gynecologist testified that a pelvic exam she performed on Swartout at the Lane County Jail suggested that Swartout more likely than not had delivered a full-term or near full-term child.

The defense team presented testimony from two OB/GYNs who reached the opposite conclusion. Swartout’s lawyers are now “looking for a new medical expert to respond to some of these things,” Mallon said.

“Basically, we are looking for a higher authority,” he added.

Chanti also set a March 13 settlement conference — most likely with Lane County Circuit Judge Karsten Rasmussen — in hope that the two sides could resolve the case without the time and expense of a second trial.
http://www.registerguard.com/web/newslocalnews/27700069-41/swartout-defense-trial-chanti-judge.html.csp

Dakota Valkyrie

April 15th, 2012, 09:06 AM

Attorneys for Angelica Swartout argued Friday that jurors in her new murder trial should not hear a conversation with her sister videotaped at the Springfield Police Department shortly after her December 2010 confession to smothering a newborn son.

Swartout’s first murder trial ended in a mistrial Feb. 9, after jurors deadlocked without a verdict after four days of deliberation. A new trial is set to begin April 30.
[...]

Swartout’s videotaped statements to one of those sisters, Jewell Sward, was the subject of the motion argued Friday before Lane County Circuit Judge Suzanne Chanti. That taped conversation should be off limits to jurors because Swartout began it by repeatedly telling a police officer she did not wish to speak to Sward, defense attorney Evelyn Oldenkamp told the judge. Swartout’s protestations amounted to invoking her right to remain silent, because police sent Sward into the interview room to try to get incriminating information about the location of the alleged infant’s body, the defense lawyer said.

“When you say you don’t want to talk anymore ... that is a line citizens get to draw and law enforcement does not get to cross that line,” Oldenkamp said.

In a motion filed this week, she wrote that the same alleged violation of Swartout’s constitutional rights also should prevent jurors from hearing Swartout’s subsequent interview with Springfield Detective George Crolly, “wherein she concedes to his version of what happened to the alleged fetus.”

Lane County Deputy District Attorney Bob Lane asked Chanti to deny the motion and let the new jury consider both conversations as evidence.

He noted that, before Swartout’s first trial, Chanti twice denied defense motions to keep the conversations out of evidence based on other factors.

“They should have made (the new) argument then,” Lane said.

He charged that the defense chose not to do so for strategic reasons, since two of their psychology experts cited the videotaped interviews as buttressing their opinions that Swartout’s confession was coerced.

“Their last strategy didn’t work, so they need to try something different,” the prosecutor said. “Our position is, (the decision on admissibility) is over.”

Chanti said she would research the matter before ruling on the defense motion but appeared to agree with Lane’s point that Swartout’s attorneys knew but failed to raise objections during the first trial about Sward going in as an agent of police. The judge questioned Oldenkamp about whether Swartout was asking to end the interview or was simply too emotionally overwrought to want to see her sister.

The judge also said “there was nothing sneaky about what they were doing ... Detective (Dave) Lewis told them they were being videotaped.”
[...]

Though he had not filed a motion requesting that the media be excluded during jury selection, Mallon also said Friday that he would send Chanti a court case establishing that precedent.
http://www.registerguard.com/web/newslocalnews/27910898-41/swartout-trial-jury-chanti-jurors.html.csp

Dakota Valkyrie

May 7th, 2012, 04:16 PM

New trial is on:

Both prosecution and defense attorneys will call new witnesses in the second trial of a Eugene woman charged with killing a newborn baby, they said in opening statements.
[...]

During opening statements Friday, Lane County Deputy District Attorney Bob Lane mirrored his previous presentation of the case. He said Swartout's family and friends watched her belly "getting bigger" and that a sister would testify to seeing and feeling a baby kick beneath the bare skin of Swartout's belly three days before the murder.

He said the state would prove Swartout bore and suffocated the newborn and discarded his body in a hotel trash bin while she worked alone on the swing shift Oct. 18, 2010. Swartout's sister, Lane said, would testify that Swartout came home from work that night no longer appearing pregnant and "smelling like afterbirth."

A second obstetrician-gynecologist, he said, would join a physician from the first trial in testifying that a jailhouse exam showed changes in Swartout's body consistent with giving birth.

He also said jurors watch her videotaped confession recorded Dec. 8, 2010.

"You don't have to take my word for it," he concluded. "You'll hear it out of her own mouth."

Defense attorney Evelyn Oldenkamp told jurors a friend would testify of being told that Swartout had an abortion.
[...]

Oldenkamp also will present evidence, she said, that Swartout's boss did not leave the hotel office for more than two hours after Swartout began her 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. shift and that company records will show she was active on the hotel's computer, checking guests in and out for much of her shift.

"Ladies and gentlemen, time is important when this 'event,' this preplotted, horrendous crime is alleged to have occurred," Oldenkamp said. "When the time comes to deliberate, use your common sense. ... Was there time?"http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2012/05/second_trial_of_eugene_woman_i.html

Obsolete

May 7th, 2012, 04:23 PM

Swartout's sister, Lane said, would testify that Swartout came home from work that night no longer appearing pregnant and "smelling like afterbirth."

huh?

penelopejo

May 7th, 2012, 04:52 PM

Does her sister routinely smell her sister's vag?

Jerri Blank

May 31st, 2012, 07:08 PM

Not Guilty! Angelica Swartout released from jail

Eugene (KMTR) - Angelica Swartout is a free woman! After two weeks of testimony, a Lane county jury needed just two hours on Thursday to reach a not guilty verdict in the re-trial.

The Springfield woman was accused of killing her newborn baby and throwing it in a dumpster where she worked in October of 2010.

After the verdict, Swartout was released from the Lane County jail with her family waiting outside.

It was Swartout's family that turned her in after they say Angelica told them she had a miscarriage. They told police and later testified in court that she was clearly pregnant.

Initially Swartout confessed to the killing, however, the Lane County Sheriff's Office searched the landfill and found nothing, and Swartout says she lied to investigators during the confession.

Swartout's first trial ended in a hung jury with a lone jury member firmly in favor of a not guilty verdict. Had one more jury member said guilty, Swartout would have been facing life in prison.

Swartout's defense attorney, Gordon Mallon says that jury member in the original trial prevented Swartout from spending years in prison that she didn't deserve. "We want to thank the jury, And we want to thank the juror from the last trial, George Bruce who saw the obvious and stood up for what he knew was right."

Minutes after the verdict, an close friend of Swartout's thanked the jury. "She's a lovely girl. She has such a love for kids. That's something that didn't come out this whole time, she has such a big heart and such a love for kids she would never do this."

http://www.kmtr.com/news/local/story/Not-Guilty-Angelica-Swartout-released-from-jail/3gwtYdTs7kisAVkZlPsumw.cspx