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Woman with Still Born Convicted of Illegal Disposal of Body

creative commons

A woman in a southern Virginia town has been sentenced to five months in jail after she disposed of her still born fetus.

The Huffington Post reports that Katherine Dellis passed out in the bathroom and woke up to discover the fetus on the floor in February of 2016.

She had been pregnant for around 32 weeks.

The online site reports that she put the fetus in a trash bag and that her father unknowingly put it a public dumpster.

An autopsy found that the lungs were not developed enough to take in air.            

Dellis was arrested and charged with concealing a dead body – a felony.

Her attorney entered a guilty plea while being allowed to argue that the statute did not apply to her case.

But a three judge appellate court upheld her conviction ruling that the disposal of the body fell within the law that includes the potential hazard to public health.

Don Rush is the News Director at Delmarva Public Media. An award-winning journalist, Don reports major local issues of the day, from sea level rise, to urban development, to the changing demographics of Delmarva.