Blue State Baby Murderer: Mom Suspected in Deaths of Four Infants Found on Property

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,291377,00.html

Bail Denied for Maryland Mom Suspected in Deaths of Four Infants Found on

Property

Monday, July 30, 2007

Christy Freeman, 37, faces murder charges in the death of her infant. Police

disovered the bodies of three other children on her property Monday.

OCEAN CITY, Md. - A mother of four who is facing murder charges in the

death of her new baby last week and is suspected in the killings of three

infants whose remains were found on her property was denied bail Monday

after pleading with the judge to free her on bond.

Meanwhile, investigators continued their search of the property, using a

backhoe to search for shallow graves in the backyard. Although the search of

the yard has not yet lead to the discovery of more bodies, police told Fox

News Monday that cadaver dogs had indicated more remains could be found.

The bodies of four small infants were found at the home of Christy Freeman,

37, a woman who denied having been pregnant, even after she was taken to a

hospital and doctors discovered a placenta and part of an umbilical cord,

police said.

"They were not full-term children," Barry Neeb, an Ocean City Police

Department spokesman, said of all the babies.

Investigators told Fox News Monday that Freeman may have been performing

abortions on herself or with the assistance of someone else.

Police found the most newly delivered child, a baby boy, in the vanity below

a bathroom sink at Freeman's home, according to charging documents. A

further search found the corpses of two other babies in a trunk in her

bedroom and another in a small recreational vehicle parked in her driveway.

Freeman was charged with first-degree murder, second-degree murder and

manslaughter in the most recent death. She asked Worcester County District

Judge Daniel Mumford on Monday to free her on bond.

"I want to clear my name in this case," Freeman said. "If you offer me a

bond, I'm not going to leave ... I'm going to be here. I'm going to help

clear this situation up."

Her attorney, Frank Benvenuto, said Freeman was not a flight risk, noting

she had lived in Ocean City for 20 years, owns a business and has four

children. Freeman is the owner of Classic Taxi in Ocean City.

Deputy State's Attorney Mike Farlow told the judge that Freeman could

liquidate her assets and flee. Mumford granted his request to deny bail and

set a preliminary hearing for Aug. 27.

Emergency medical technicians and police were called early Thursday to

Freeman's home, an apartment on the second floor of a building less than a

block off the Coastal Highway, the main north-south route in this resort

town.

Her boyfriend, Raymond W. Godman Jr., said Freeman had passed out in the

bathroom and he carried her to the sofa, according to the charging

documents. She was lying down and bleeding heavily, and had a garbage bag

and towels under her. Freeman told rescue workers she was not and had not

been pregnant.

She was taken to Atlantic General Hospital in Berlin, where tests by doctors

determined she had been pregnant. Freeman maintained that was not the case,

the charging documents said. After she was transferred to Peninsula Regional

Medical Center in Salisbury, doctors there found a placenta that was between

30 to 36 weeks old and an umbilical cord with an "irregular cut."

Freeman eventually told police that she had delivered a dead and deformed

baby - claiming that she did not see any hands or feet - and that she had

flushed the body down the toilet, charging documents said.

Police said they then obtained a search warrant for the home and found the

infant wrapped in a white towel with a blue stripe in the cabinet below the

bathroom sink. The charging documents described the baby as a "viable

fetus/infant," with hands, feet and facial features.

Police then found two other babies' bodies and a placenta in plastic bags in

a trunk in Freeman's room. A search Friday of the motor home found a plastic

bag with the fourth infant's corpse.

The search of Freeman's property continued over the weekend and resumed

Monday with a backhoe, chainsaws and shovels. Police described it as a

"complex crime scene" and called in the FBI for help in recovering evidence.

Freeman and Godman lived at the home with her four other children, teenagers

who police said were safe. Godman is not a suspect in the babies' deaths,

police said.

Classic Taxi specializes in using cars from the 1950s and 1960s, according

to the company's Web site. On the Web site, Freeman's profile said she and

Godman had been a couple since 1988 and her hobbies were "our four

children." She said the family were NASCAR fans and liked to fish, boat and

camp together. Godman was described as a "motorhead" who, through the

company, found a way to fulfill his dream of working on and driving multiple

classic cars.

A man who answered the phone at Classic Taxi declined to comment.

Freeman was charged under a 2005 law that specifically banned the killing of

a fetus that can live outside the womb. Maryland's chief medical examiner,

Dr. David Fowler, has said that generally is at seven months.

She has been charged only with the death of the most recently delivered

baby.

Of the other infants, Neeb said "the rest could be a number of years old."

Neeb said the four bodies were sent to the office of the chief medical

examiner in Baltimore to determine the causes of death, their ages and how

long ago they died. Investigators will also conduct DNA tests to determine

whether the babies were Freeman's, Neeb said.

At Dave's Taxi in Ocean City, driver Steve Morris, 45, said he knew Freeman

through the town's cab association. He said he had seen her a week ago. "I

didn't know she was pregnant and I didn't know she had any kids," Morris

said.

He said Freeman seemed like a nice person. "She seemed levelheaded, down to

earth. The whole town's shocked," Morris said.

Morris said Classic Taxi has four or five cabs.

Ron Cecil, 71, the owner of Aaron Taxi, also had met Freeman through the

taxi association and said he saw her driving a cab several weeks ago. He

said she was short and chunky and wore sweatshirts. The charging documents

described Freeman as 5 feet, 8 inches tall, and weighing 180 pounds.

"She could have easily been pregnant and it not have been known," Cecil

said.