Kenbridge girl charged with disposing her dead infant’s body

A 17-year-old Kenbridge girl has been charged with illegally disposing her still-born baby in the back yard of a house next door.

The girl, whose name was withheld because of her age, was arrested this morning on the misdemeanor charge and taken to the Piedmont Detention Center for Juveniles in Farmville.

Kenbridge police said a city resident found the baby's remains yesterday afternoon behind his house at 214 N. Broad Street. The body had been placed in a plastic bag with some clothes and hidden under ivy in a depression in the ground. The body was not buried.

Last night, police talked to the teenage girl next door and she admitted it was her dead infant, said Kenbridge Police Chief Jan Myers.

She said the baby was born dead at her home on the evening of April 14. She told police that she placed the infant's body in a plastic bag with clothes the next day, then placed the bag in the backyard of her neighbor's home among an overgrowth of vegetation, Myers said.

The girl told police that she and the child's father are from Guatemala and didn't know what to do.

The remains were taken to the state Medical Examiner's Office in Richmond for an autopsy and determination of cause of death. Myers said police do not suspect foul play.