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MENTONE - A newborn baby was found dead in a trash can at a chicken processing plant near Mentone.
Foul play is suspected.
The mother of the female infant is being treated at Kosciusko Community Hospital, Warsaw, and she is expected to be preliminarily charged with voluntary manslaughter, according to Kosciusko County Sheriff Aaron Rovenstine.
Beatriz Cuautle, who will turn 29 Saturday, is under police guard at KCH. The Warsaw woman was employed at Kralis Brothers Foods Inc. at 2601 S. Tinkey Road, Mentone, since Nov. 7, 2000. She will be booked into the Kosciusko County Jail upon her release from KCH, likely later today, Rovenstine said.
The baby is believed to be the woman's fifth child, Rovenstine said, and a language barrier left police with conflicting statements from Cuautle's husband, who reportedly said he both knew and didn't know that his wife was pregnant. Because three of Cuautle's children are in Mexico, Rovenstine said, she will be considered a flight risk. Her immigration status is not known at this time.
Rovenstine said he didn't expect the call to play out the way it did. Police were dispatched to Kralis Brothers at 12:40 p.m. on a report that a fetus was found in a trash can. "It was a baby. It was a little girl," Rovenstine said of the full-term infant. A cause of death will be determined in an autopsy scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. today at St. Joseph Medical Center, Fort Wayne.
"We're primarily looking to see if the baby was alive and breathing on its own and if there was any other trauma," said Kosciusko County Coroner Larry Ladd. He estimated the baby to weigh between 7 and 8 pounds.
Rovenstine said evidence at the scene "leads us to believe there was foul play. ... The baby may have been alive."
Reports from other employees at the business indicate they may have heard a baby cry, he said.
Prior to that time, Cuautle allegedly told a janitor she was feeling ill and was going to be in the bathroom. The janitor apparently kept people from entering the bathroom for about two hours. Cuautle then exited the bathroom and returned to work, police said.
A short time later, the infant's body was discovered in a trash can, along with blood-soaked paper towels. The bathroom itself apparently didn't indicate that a baby was just born there, Rovenstine said.
The matter remains under investigation.
