Girl Who Killed Her Baby Gets Year in Juvenile Hall

A 16-year-old Fullerton girl who admitted killing her newborn son last October and dumping his body in a trash bin was sentenced Tuesday to a year in the county’s Juvenile Hall.

Superior Court Judge C. Robert Jameson, who called the circumstances surrounding the killing “a family tragedy,” rejected prosecutors’ request that Juana Hernandez Lopez be sent to the California Youth Authority, where she could have remained up to seven years.

“We think she has a better chance of getting into programs she needs at Juvenile Hall,” said Deputy Public Defender Laureen J. Gray, Lopez’s attorney. Gray argued that the state Youth Authority has too many people for its small counseling staff to give Lopez the individual attention she needs.

“This is an especially sad case,” Gray said. “She is a sweet girl but ignorant, with no resources and few friends.”

Lopez has another child, a 2-year-old son, who is now with her parents. With only a one-year Juvenile Court commitment, Lopez has a good chance of regaining custody of her other child, Gray said.

Child Was Suffocated

The child’s body was found in a plastic bag in a dumpster in Fullerton on Oct. 12, 1987. The child had been suffocated. Lopez was 15 at the time.

The girl gave birth to the child without help at her parents’ house while they were gone. She abandoned the child in a nearby dumpster. Police questioned her three days later after a tip from an unidentified caller. She later took the officers to the dumpster, where the body was found.

Lopez has been at Juvenile Hall since her arrest. She pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in Juvenile Court last month.

Lopez, who was 14 when her other child was born, is a Mexican immigrant who speaks almost no English. She came to the United States with her family in 1984, and briefly attended Ladera Vista Junior High School. She left school when she was pregnant with her first child.

Public Defender Gray said Lopez’s parents are very poor and told her that she would have to leave home if she got pregnant again because they could not afford to take care of her and any more children.

‘No Place to Turn’

“She felt she had no place to turn,” Gray said. “She tried to get help from some other people, but nothing worked out.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael A. Jacobs argued that while Lopez’s background may be difficult, “someone’s dead . . . whether he was one day old, or 20 years old, it doesn’t matter.”

One of the programs Lopez will complete at Juvenile Hall deals with relationships between men and women, Gray said. She explained that both of Lopez’s children were the result of casual sex the girl had with men she hardly knew.

Gray said Lopez is also being treated now for depression.

“She very much regrets what happened, but we’re told she suffered from depression even before this incident,” Gray said. “But she’s responding very well to all the programs. She has a good chance to making it OK.”

Upon her release from Juvenile Hall, Lopez must remain on probation under Jameson’s order until she is 21.