The State - News from Sept. 7, 1988

No murder charge will be filed against the 16-year-old girl who gave birth to a baby in a campground outhouse and then said she accidentally dropped the infant into the waste tank underneath, the Placer County district attorney’s office said. “We have basically decided not to proceed with any murder charges,” a district attorney’s spokesman said. Investigators are still considering filing involuntary manslaughter and felony child endangerment charges in the case. The mother, whose name has been withheld because of her age, gave birth July 23 in an outhouse at the North Fork Campground of the Tahoe National Forest after concealing her pregnancy from family and friends. She said she accidentally dropped the newborn into the 1,000-gallon waste tank. Autopsy results show the full-term infant died of asphyxiation.