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StumbleuponTeen indicted in infant's death
Baby was found dead after 18-year-old gave birth at home; she's charged with involuntary manslaughter.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Katherine Waugh, 18, is charged with child endangering, a misdemeanor, and involuntary manslaughter, a felony, after the death of her newborn child born in this house on Dayton-Xenia Rd.XENIA — Grand jurors struggled with the decision to indict a Beavercreek teen who gave birth at home to a baby girl later found dead.
"It's a hard case," said Stephen K. Haller, Greene County prosecutor. "We felt it needed to be presented to the grand jury. After considerable deliberation, they voted to indict on those two counts."
Katherine Waugh, 18, is charged with child endangering, a misdemeanor, and involuntary manslaughter, a felony. If convicted she faces as many as five years in prison.
Waugh concealed her pregnancy. She gave birth March 21 in the bathroom of her Dayton-Xenia Road home.
Medics were called to the house hours later after Katherine and her mother, Karen Waugh, went to the hospital, where the teen revealed she had given birth.
Emergency workers found the infant in the teen's room wrapped in a towel, but cold and not breathing. The baby was pronounced dead at Children's Hospital Dayton.
Montgomery County Deputy Coroner Bryan D. Casto listed the cause and manner of death as undetermined. An autopsy report concluded that the child's umbilical cord had been severed, but not tied off.
Casto was extensively questioned by grand jurors when they reviewed evidence on Tuesday, June 24, Haller said.
Tom Schiff, Waugh's attorney, said he will argue the infant was stillborn.
"If that was the case, there is no homicide or child endangering," Schiff said, adding that the Waughs will not comment on the case.
Waugh will be arraigned next week, but will not be arrested, Haller said.
Contact the reporter at (937) 225-2342 or
cmagan@DaytonDailyNews.com
.
