Woman Charged With Killing Her Baby With Car Pleads Not Guilty

An Anaheim woman accused of killing her 6-week-old son by running over him with a car last week pleaded not guilty to murder charges in North Municipal Court Tuesday.

A June 18 preliminary hearing date was set for Sheryl Lynn Massip, 23, whose attorney said Tuesday that Massip had been so distressed over the baby’s chronic crying that it drove her out of the house the night before the baby’s death.

The attorney, Milton C. Grimes, said she has been under such stress that “she doesn’t know what happened, and I’m not sure that in her present mental state you could believe anything she says about it.”

Massip told Anaheim police last Wednesday that the child had been stolen from her arms as she was walking with him in a schoolyard near her home. But the baby’s body was found in Fullerton a short time later, behind a home in the 300 block of North Marwood Avenue. Police said evidence showed that the baby had been run over a few blocks away from there, in the 600 block of North Leland Drive in Fullerton.

Massip was arrested later that day, and police said they believe that she ran over the baby herself.

Grimes said the baby had a throat problem from the time he was born that made it difficult for him to keep his formula down and caused him to cry continually.

Massip was so upset by the crying and was losing so much sleep that she went to a doctor on April 27, Grimes said. The attorney said that she was told that she was suffering from postpartum depression and that the doctor ordered medication for her. But she refused to take it, Grimes said.

On the night of April 28, she decided to spend the night at her father’s house, Grimes said, so she could get some sleep away from the baby’s crying.

“But she didn’t sleep, and when she came in at 9 a.m. (the next morning), her husband (Alfredo) told her the baby had been crying for hours and she would have to do something about it,” Grimes said.

Grimes added that a friend of the family noticed about 9:30 a.m. that morning that the baby was listless, and five minutes later noticed again that the baby had not changed positions and that something seemed to be wrong.

It was at 11:45 a.m. that Massip told police that the baby had been abducted.

“All I’m saying is, there is a possibility that baby was dead before the car incident,” Grimes said.

A neighbor told The Times last week that the Massips had looked forward to having the baby and that Sheryl Massip loved the baby very much.

Grimes said his client gave the baby cardiopulmonary resuscitation a few weeks ago when he seemed to have trouble breathing.

“She told her mother, ‘Why would I want to kill my baby?’ ” Grimes said. “I don’t believe she knows what happened.”