OXNARD : Farm Worker Denies Murdering Baby
A 22-year-old immigrant farm worker pleaded not guilty Wednesday in Ventura County Superior Court to charges that she dropped her babies into toilets, killing the second and injuring the first.
Francisca Maria Sanchez Jimenez of Oxnard denied charges of murder and attempted murder and is scheduled to stand trial on Jan. 6.
In a preliminary hearing earlier this month, witnesses said Sanchez Jimenez repeatedly denied that she was pregnant before she gave birth on July 28 in a portable latrine near the Saticoy field where she was picking onions.
Prosecutors say Sanchez Jimenez dropped the baby into the toilet, where he suffocated on fecal matter.
Witnesses also testified that she gave birth to a son on May 11, 1990, and tried to flush him headfirst down the toilet in her Oxnard home before her roommates rescued him.
County juvenile authorities returned that child, named Jose Luis, to his mother for several months but later placed him in a foster home after his face was burned by a hot bottle that she allegedly left in his crib.
Sanchez Jimenez is being held in the Ventura County Jail in lieu of $250,000 bail. If convicted, she faces a possible maximum sentence of life in prison.
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