Angelica Swartout told family her newborn baby was stillborn

**jenny7795** · December 10th, 2010, 02:50 AM

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

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...aby-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

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!

**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

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...y-landfill.csp

**WhatThe** · December 14th, 2010, 09:13 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!"

**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/new...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/new...elica.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.

**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:

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

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.

**Obsolete** · November 9th, 2011, 02:12 PM

Originally Posted by Tundratot

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

Originally Posted by princessgrandma

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.