Aborted Twins in Oceanside : Charges Filed in Infants’ Death, Disposal

A grisly incident that apparently began as a botched abortion and ended with the death of twin infants has prompted prosecutors to file voluntary-manslaughter and child-abuse charges against the wife of a Camp Pendleton Marine and her mother.

Vickie Judkins, 24, and her mother, Ida Belle Franks, 47, both of Oceanside, are to be arraigned today in San Diego Municipal Court on charges stemming from the case.

Prosecutors suspect that Judkins bore premature twins a few days after Christmas, wrapped the still-living infants in plastic trash bags and tossed them in separate dumpsters along Interstate 5 between Oceanside and Los Angeles.

Lance Cpl. Willie Paul Judkins, 21, was not charged in the episode, which allegedly began in the couple’s run-down, two-bedroom dwelling in an Oceanside apartment complex that is popular among Marine families.

Although Willie Judkins and the two women have reportedly admitted to police that the babies were born alive in the family apartment, which the couple shared with Franks, but said the infants had stopped breathing before they were wrapped up for disposal.

However, police say a neighbor, Yolanda Morales, is willing to testify that Franks and Vickie Judkins told her that the unwanted babies were alive when they were placed inside the garbage bags.

Judkins and his wife, Ohio natives with two other young children, told police they could not afford another child when they learned last fall that she was pregnant. A decision was made to abort the pregnancy using a Lysol-soaked straw, they told police in a taped interview.

According to medical experts, the babies possibly could have been saved had an ambulance been called to provide life-sustaining drugs and oxygen while rushing them to a nearby neonatal intensive-care unit.

“I think this is more tragedy than anything else,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Harry Elias, head of the child-abuse unit. “You’ve got two babies who were apparently born and, perhaps with some medical intervention, could still be here. And the fact they’re not is a shame.”

Tipped Off by Neighbor

Police have been investigating the case since they were tipped off by a neighbor who talked to Franks, an assertive woman who reportedly frightened residents of the apartment complex by claiming to know voodoo and threatening to cast jinxes and spells.

The couple and Franks told police that, after several homespun abortion attempts over a number of weeks, Vickie Judkins went into labor and delivered the two infants alive.

Vickie Judkins said in the police interview that she first noticed the babies were dead about an hour after their birth. Instead of calling authorities, the couple and Franks said, they put the infants in the trunk of their battered Cadillac. The lance corporal and his mother-in-law drove north to dispose of the bodies, they told police.

Since Vickie Judkins never received prenatal care, there is no official record of her pregnancy or any way of knowing how premature the babies might have been. But investigators, based on statements the young woman made, speculate that Judkins was five to seven months pregnant at the time of the births.

Although she at first agreed to a medical examination to prove she had been pregnant, Judkins later refused the test, police said.

Prosecutors balked at leveling charges for several months, noting that the bodies of the babies were never recovered and they had no physical evidence.

However, Elias said, investigators were able to develop key evidence from bloodstains on a mattress that Vickie Judkins told police she gave birth on. The mattress was discovered on the Marine base by Camp Pendleton authorities.

But the prosecutor said authorities hold out no hope of ever finding the bodies of the babies, which they say are probably buried under tons or garbage in a landfill.

Neighbors and friends describe the young couple as troubled and confused, always short of money and apparently unable to cope with the pressures of parenthood. The pair had never become comfortable with California after being uprooted from the more familiar surroundings of Camp Lejeune, N.C., neighbors said.

Elias would not reveal what role each of the adults may have played in the episode, but said he could “just not see any criminal intent” on the part of Willie Judkins. The young Marine apparently arrived at the apartment after the babies had died.