A couple in California has been arrested after allegedly strangling their newborn baby to death at a hospital, police said.
Officers were called to investigate a “suspicious injury report” at St. John’s Medical Center in Oxnard on Friday, July 19, according to a news release by the Oxnard Police Department.
Officers arrived at the hospital shortly before 8 a.m. and found the infant in critical condition with suspicious injuries. The baby died of his injuries shortly after despite efforts to save him.
Police say the newborn baby’s mother Andrea Torralba, and her boyfriend, David Villa, strangled the newborn until he was unconscious.https://t.co/uGSa9UIsYG
— FOX 11 Los Angeles (@FOXLA) July 20, 2019
Police said the baby was strangled until he lost consciousness.
Parents Andrea Torralba, 20, and David Villa, 21, were arrested for assault on a child resulting in death—a felony. They are being held on $1 million bail each, according to the police report.
Oxnard police Sgt. Brandon Ordelheide said the couple later admitted to killing the baby, KTLA reported.
Torralba and Villa said they strangled the baby after Torralba had given birth at the hospital because they didn’t want the child, Ordelheide told the Associated Press.
St. John’s Medical Center on Saturday released a statement:
“While we deal with tragedies every day, the staff at St. John’s Regional Medical Center are devastated by the alleged incident. In the midst of this investigation, it is timely to remind our community of California’s Safe Surrender Law wherein: Newborn infants can be dropped off at any safe surrender site such as hospitals, fire stations and police stations, within 72 hours of birth, with no questions asked. According to the California Department of Social Services, “From January 1, 2001 to December 31, 2017, 931 newborns have been surrendered in California, and 88 newborns were surrendered during the 2017 calendar year.”
For information about Safe Surrender Sites a toll-free anonymous hotline number provides information and locations of Safe Surrender Sites: dial 877.BABY.SAF (1-877-222-9723).”
Mom pleads guilty in fatal deaths of 2 daughters
ATHENS, Texas—A Texas woman was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty Wednesday, July 17 to shooting and killing her two young daughters in 2017.
Prosecutors declined to pursue the death penalty against Sarah Nicole Henderson in exchange for her pleading guilty to two counts of capital murder in the deaths of her 5- and 7-year-old daughters.
Henderson, 31, has been in custody since her November 2017 arrest at her home near Mabank, about 50 miles southeast of Dallas. She confessed when talking to investigators and said she had been planning to kill the girls and her husband for several weeks, Henderson County Sheriff Botie Hillhouse said at the time. She also told investigators she planned to kill herself, he said.
Henderson shot the girls in the head while they were sleeping in the living room. She tried to shoot her husband, Jacob Henderson, but the gun malfunctioned, Hillhouse said. She was charged with attempted murder, but the charge was dropped as part of her plea deal with prosecutors.
“Babe I just shot the kids”: Texas mother avoids death penalty for killing two young daughters, gets life in prison.
“What did I do, Lord? What did I do?” Sarah Nicole Henderson also tried to shoot her husband, but the gun malfunctioned.https://t.co/xje3uJk27q
— New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) July 18, 2019
Jacob Henderson, called 911 that day seeking medical help for his wife. He told operators that she was, “freaking out like someone is out to get her,” according to a recording of the call.
He called back a few minutes later to cancel the call, saying that his wife told him she was feeling fine and that she was acting normally.
Jacob Henderson called 911 again a few hours later to report that his wife had shot the girls. He could be heard sobbing and asking why she had done it.
Sarah Henderson was heard in the background asking her husband to kill her or shoot her, saying people were after her and that they were coming. At one point in the recording she yelled, “God, what did I do?”
The Associated Press contributed to this report
