Nicole Devine, the woman accused of throwing away her newborn in a trash Dumpster a half-hour after giving birth, was in court Thursday as her defense attorney tried to suppress interviews that the 24-year-old gave to police and social workers.
A Lyon County judge declined to throw out interviews with police in which Devine said she gave birth to the baby boy in a bathtub, wrapped him in a trash bag and left him in a Dumpster behind the Chapel Ridge
apartment
complex in Emporia, KWCH reported. However, an interview with a social worker was reportedly tossed out.
Devine allegedly told police, "I can't be a mom." And it's hard to argue
with her, given the accusations that after leaving her baby in a
Dumpster, she went out for a chocolate shake. She's charged with
attempted intentional first-degree murder after
allegedly wrapping her newborn with a still-attached umbilical cord in
a garbage bag and leaving him in a trash bin.
Luckily, maintenance workers found the 7-pound,
10-ounce
baby boy. The boy, treated at a hospital, is in good condition.
According to the Hutchinson
News, the baby had been born about 30 minutes before being
abandoned. Devine, a student at Emporia State University, reportedly
told police that she was raped.
On the day that the baby was found,
investigators found Devine working at an Emporia Wal-Mart. She denied
having given birth. Her case wasn't helped by the bloodstain on her car
seat. She later came clean, admitting "that if she were to be examined
by a medical professional, results would show she recently had a baby."
She also told them that she cleaned up, got a milkshake and went to
work.
Devine told investigators that she figured she
was pregnant in October after feeling "kicking" in her stomach, the Hutch
News reported. But she never saw a doctor and didn't tell anyone
about the pregnancy.
This all could have been avoided. Kansas' "Safe Haven"She described falling asleep Oct. 21 at her East Seventh Avenue
apartment in Emporia, where she lived alone, then waking up the next
morning and blacking out in the bathtub, according to the affidavit.
"When she woke, there was a lot of blood and her stomach was flat," the
affidavit states.
law allows unharmed babies to be left at a medical facility, fire
department, or city or county health department, no questions asked, for
up to 45 days.
Devine has been found competent to stand trial. Her next court appearance is scheduled for March 21.
