Couple Accused of Killing 2 Newborns

As far back as 1974, county social workers suspected that Sharon Conley and Ronald Wesselmann were abusing, neglecting and, more recently, killing their children, records show.

But for 18 years, the system gave the youngsters little protection as complaints--at least eight from 1982 and 1987--came in from neighbors, school personnel and others.

Records show that the county returned the couple’s children at least twice after taking them--when the two were convicted of child cruelty in 1986 and when the body of a newborn was found near their former home in 1987. At the time the body was found, authorities could not establish the cause of death, and the couple were not then charged in that death.

In September, 1987, the same month that the newborn’s body was found, a county children’s services administrator wrote in a memo that Conley apparently had had three pregnancies in the prior four years, and that the fates of two of the children were in doubt.

The third child, a 4-month-old girl, died, supposedly of sudden infant death syndrome, in 1983.

“The details of Ms. Conley’s other two pregnancies are unknown,” the county official said in the 1987 memo. “I am extremely uncomfortable with the entire situation given all the unknowns.”

Last February, the couple were jailed and charged with murdering two of their newborns, one a boy found in their apartment dumpster Feb. 16, and the other infant whose body had been found in 1987. Authorities charged Conley and Wesselmann in the 1987 case based on a statement made by their eldest daughter.

Now their six youngest children have been removed from the home by county officials.

Sheriff’s deputies this year searched near the couple’s former home for remains of other children, and found nothing.

In the most recent death, Conley, now 35, at first denied being pregnant or having knowledge of the infant, authorities said. Later, according to sheriff’s reports, she acknowledged placing the baby in a trash bag and then in the dumpster, saying he had been born not breathing despite her efforts to help him.

But Deputy Dist. Atty. Ron Smalstig said an autopsy found that the boy was born alive. The couple also has denied guilt in the death of the other infant, although their daughter, 18, who lives with a relative, has told authorities a newborn disappeared about that time.

Neighbors said Conley used methamphetamine and suffered mood swings because of it. The body of the newborn found this year also had traces of the drug. Wesselmann, 38, has been portrayed by his eldest daughter and Conley’s mother as abusive and domineering, often demanding that his wife have no more children.