CYPRESS : Mother Arrested in Newborn’s Death

A Cypress mother of three was arrested Sunday afternoon on suspicion of killing her newborn baby after her husband discovered the dead infant in a bag in a bedroom closet, police said.

Marchelle Lynn Black, 27, was taken to the Orange County Women’s Jail in Santa Ana on Sunday afternoon, several hours after the discovery. An autopsy was performed on the infant Sunday, but officials with the coroner’s office would not release their findings.

Police said initial reports indicate that the woman’s husband, whose name was not immediately available, did not know that his wife had been pregnant for nine months.

Cypress Police Sgt. John Avila said police began their investigation after receiving a report from Pioneer Hospital in Norwalk that Black had been admitted to the emergency room at 3 a.m. Sunday.

“The staff advised that it appeared that she had given birth but was being evasive about the whereabouts of the baby,” Avila said.

Investigators, who were dispatched to Black’s two-bedroom house in Cypress, spoke to Black’s husband, but he said he did not know his wife had apparently just given birth, Avila said.

According to police, the man said that his wife had begun hemorrhaging inexplicably and that his father rushed her to the hospital. But the man added that he did not suspect that his wife’s condition was related to childbirth.

After talking to the husband, investigators returned to Pioneer Hospital. They were called back to the Black residence a second time after the husband telephoned police to report that he had just found a dead baby in a closet.

“After the police left, the husband decided that he better do some looking around,” Avila said. “He found what appeared to be a full-term baby in a bag in one of the closets.”

Black was transferred from the hospital to the Orange County Jail about 5 p.m. She was being held there Sunday night.

“You’ve got a woman giving birth to a full-term baby and finding it in a closet. That in itself is suspicious,” Avila said, explaining why police arrested Black on suspicion of murder. “Even in a normal birth like that, the thing to do would be to call paramedics and get help. That was not done.

“It’s really puzzling. It’s going to be a few more days before we know the motive. It’s puzzling and a little bizarre, to say the least.”