SATICOY : Farm Worker Is Ruled Competent to Stand Trial in Baby’s Drowning
A migrant farm worker accused of throwing two newborn babies into toilets--killing one and causing brain damage to the other--is competent to stand trial, a Ventura County judge ruled Friday.
After considering three psychological reports, Superior Court Judge Frederick A. Jones reinstated murder and attempted murder charges against Maria Francisca Sanchez.
Sanchez, who is in her early 20s, allegedly dumped her infant son into a portable toilet July 28 after giving birth while working in a Saticoy onion field. The baby drowned. His body was found that night when the toilet was emptied.
In May, 1990, Sanchez tried to flush another baby down the toilet after giving birth at the Oxnard home where she lived, investigators said. A neighbor heard the child crying and rescued him, but the infant suffered brain damage, investigators said. That child is living in a foster home.
Sanchez disappeared after each birth. She was arrested last month in Oxnard and is being held in the Ventura County Jail on $250,000 bail.
She will be arraigned Monday in Ventura County Municipal Court.
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