Psychologist to Assist Girl Charged With Slaying Her Newborn Infant

A 16-year-old girl who has been charged with murder after her newborn son was found dead in a trash dumpster may be in shock following the incident, a judge decided Thursday and appointed a psychologist to help her.

“There is a feeling that she is still in shock and not understanding what is happening,” said Laureen Gray, a deputy public defender representing the Fullerton girl, a Latina who came to the United States from Mexico before entering seventh grade in 1984.

Meanwhile, an expert on teen-age pregnancy problems, particularly within the Latino community, described the young mother’s plight as a “no-win situation.”

The girl, already the mother of a 1-year-old boy, sat in the cramped hearing room in a cream-colored polo shirt and blue jeans, with her wrists handcuffed behind her. She showed little expression as Juvenile Court Referee Betty J. Farrell postponed until Monday a hearing on whether she should remain in custody. Farrell appointed the psychologist after the session was over and the girl was returned to Juvenile Hall.

Her father and a court interpreter sat behind her during the 10-minute hearing.

At one point, Farrell asked the girl--who had been nodding in answer to court questions that were translated into Spanish by the interpreter--to please speak up.

“Si,” the girl muttered softly, looking at the floor.

Her father declined to talk to reporters after the hearing.

The girl, whose name was withheld because of her age, is reportedly doing “OK” in Juvenile Hall, where she will receive therapy from a psychologist, Gray said Thursday. “But she wasn’t displaying the emotion someone would be expected to show,” Gray said. “She is very young, originally from a rural background and appears to be very unsophisticated. She sensed she had no options, and that’s the tragedy.”

Police said the girl’s full-term baby boy, delivered while she was alone at her parents’ home Friday, was alive when she wrapped him in a plastic bag and abandoned him in a nearby dumpster.

A call to police Monday night led officers to a two-bedroom home in east Fullerton, where the girl lives with her parents and other relatives. The girl took police to the dumpster where the body was found.

Since then she has been in custody at Juvenile Hall. Her 1-year-old son is being cared for by her parents, officials said.

While the exact cause of the newborn’s death won’t be determined for another eight weeks when toxicology and tissue tests are completed, privately officials said the baby died of suffocation.

“It’s definitely not a neglect case,” said Charles Middleton, the district attorney who is prosecuting the case. “All the facts surrounding the case indicate it was murder.”

However, Patricia Gomez, director with the Santa Ana-based Coalition Concerned with Adolescent Pregnancy, said the circumstances surrounding the case suggest that “she (the girl) was in a no-win situation.”

‘The girl sounds like a victim of the circumstances,” said Gomez, who also directs Latino community education efforts for the nonprofit organization.

“Unless someone along the line like a teacher, counselor, or neighbor referred the girl to a care agency, her case is very, very difficult. She doesn’t speak the language, understand the school system and with many (Latinos) not trusting the system, then all efforts will be spun out in a vacuum anyway.”

Officials said the girl came to California with her family shortly before she enrolled at Ladera Vista Junior High School in 1984. After finishing one year at school--seventh grade--she became pregnant with her first child and dropped out.

Assistant Principal Robert Taylor called and visited her home when she did not return for eighth grade. “She was very embarrassed and did not want to come back,” he said.

Taylor put her in touch with a program for dropout students. Program officials met with the girl and referred her to various child-care programs, he said.

“I remember her as a kid with a good heart, just arrived from Mexico,” he said. “But she comes from a very traditional family, and they didn’t avail themselves of the help.”

Taylor sees her predicament now as a “tragic mistake this poor kid made looking for warmth in her life. Schools are dealing with heart and life issues every day. Imagine, this kid was suddenly uprooted from Mexico and cast right in the middle of a whole other world. Like leaving the earth and going to Venus.

“She didn’t speak the language, and didn’t have the schooling or social skills here to learn how to protect herself from harm’s way.”

Because the girl was 15 when she put the baby in the dumpster--her 16th birthday was Sunday--she cannot be tried as an adult, officials said. If convicted and sentenced to the California Youth Authority, shecould be incarcerated only until she is 25, except in rare instances.

But prosecutor Middleton said that historically, youths sentenced for such murder usually serve terms of about 5 1/2 years.